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http://www.aww.com.au/latest-news/crime/what-life-is-really-like-inside-a-womens-prison-20702
AUSTRALIA – WHAT IS LIFE REALLY LIKE INSIDE A WOMEN’S PRISON?
Author Clair Weaver & Photographer Nick
Cubbin – May 21, 2015
With her
plaited pigtails, lean limbs and childlike earnest, Allison could be in her
teens at first glance. Come a little closer, however, and you’ll realise that
she’s a lot older than that. Etched into her face are the years of abusing
drugs and the beatings from violent partners (including the time her injuries
were so bad she lost a baby).
Allison
(background) and Dellah (foreground), inmates at the high-security Silverwater
Women's Correctional Centre in Sydney. PHOTO: Nick Cubbin.
There are
other clues of the life she’s led: anxiety in the way her eyes dart around and
a wariness of getting too involved with other inmates. There’s also an
unexpected eagerness to please.
Truth is,
although she says this is her last stint inside, the 43-year-old mother-of-three
feels most at home within the grey concrete grounds of Silverwater Women’s
Correctional Centre, a high-security prison in Sydney. It’s here that she’s
found routine, stability and a measure of peace.
Step into
her impeccably tidy cell and there are more clues about Allison: individual
zip-locked bags of muesli - purchased with her earnings as a caregiver for
mentally ill inmates - are lined up carefully in a box. Her single bed has been
made with military precision with blankets folded on top. Nothing is out of
place. Allison’s job is physically and emotionally demanding but she likes it
that way: by 4pm, when inmates are locked into their cells, she’s tired.
The cousin
of a famous Australian footballer, Allison has a supportive family in northern
NSW. Unlike many of her fellow prisoners, she had a happy childhood. A bright
and sporty little girl, she started school early aged four under the tutelage
of nuns. But at 16, she quit school to become a hairdresser, went off the rails
and started taking drugs.
“It wasn’t
until I was 19 that I started to use heroin,” she tells The Weekly.
“I lived two
very separate lives for a while. But then it started to catch up with me.”
Today she’s
serving time for theft, alongside the daughters of her peers. Another generation
is repeating the hopeless cycle of crime, drugs and incarceration.
“This time,”
says Allison, somewhat unconvincingly, “will be my last.”
Across
Australia, there are about 2,600 women living behind bars. While they’re
dwarfed by their 31,200 male counterparts, the female prison population is
increasing at a much faster rate - and has blown out in the space of a
generation.
Young
mum Keisha hugs her baby son Jack. They live together while she's serving time
under a mothers and children's program at Emu Plains Correctional Centre.
PHOTO: Nick Cubbin
“Many years
ago,” explains Patrick Aboud, the affable general manager at Silverwater
Women’s who has spent 28 years working in the prison system, “it was very
unusual for a woman to commit a crime at all. Nowadays there’s a lot more
violence, murder and drugs.”
Have a
rummage through public records and you can see the shift. In New South Wales for example, women accounted
for just 2.1 per cent of the prison population in 1975. Today the figure has
more than tripled to 7 per cent - and it’s rising.
Look beyond
numbers and you’ll realise statistics about Australian women serving time in
jail make for very grim reading. A third grew up in foster care, two-thirds have
been in violent relationships and more than a quarter have attempted suicide.
While you can’t ignore or excuse their crimes, it’s clear they are very much
victims too.
This is, in
other words, one seriously disadvantaged group of women. Not that they’re too
busy feeling sorry for themselves – none of the inmates The Weekly speaks
with for this feature claims they shouldn't have ended up in prison.
Today
there’s a new interest in the lives of women in jail in the wake of the
award-winning TV series Orange Is The New Black (aired by
Netflix and on Foxtel in Australia). The US comedy drama tells the story of a
woman torn away from her affluent life in New York and plunged into the gritty
world of prison after being sentenced for a crime she committed 10 years
previously.
From
what The Weekly observes during three visits to different
women’s prisons, there are obvious parallels between the TV series and the
reality of life behind bars. On the positive side, there’s humour, banter and
resourcefulness. Inmates appeal to guards for rules to be bent, exceptions to
be allowed and compromises to be made. Indeed, there are aspects of prison life
that resemble that of a girls’ boarding school, albeit a strict one.
Yet scratch
the surface and you’ll find an underlying sense of frustration, guilt,
helplessness and sadness from women who have reached rock bottom.
“I was
shattered when my kids got taken off me,” says Erin, 29, an ex-heroin addict
who is serving time for burglary at the medium-security Dillwynia prison near
Windsor in NSW.
“That’s why
I’m [taking part in a drug program] while I’m inside. I’ve got to prove to them
I’m a changed person.”
Prison
correctional officers will tell you that women serving time are very different
from their male counterparts. In a men’s prison, you need to watch your back.
Things can turn violent quickly. In a female facility, on the other hand,
you’re more likely to get caught up trying to resolve complex emotional
disputes and relationship breakdowns.
“Men are high
risk and low need,” a correctional officer tells The Weeklywith a
wry smile, “Women, on the other hand, are low risk and high need.”
Illustrating
this, it’s rare for women to try and escape (although a planned old-school
attempt using knotted bed sheets was foiled by guards at Emu Plains, west of
Sydney, 18 months ago).
Similarly,
they’re much less likely to be violent or start riots than their male
counterparts. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen. Only a couple of months ago,
two officers were taken to hospital after being attacked by a female inmate,
who reportedly left one vomiting in distress after wrenching hair from her
head. The attack sparked a lockdown at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre at
Ravenhall in Melbourne’s western suburbs.
In
rehabilitation sessions, say staff, women prisoners are more forthcoming than
men in talking about problems in their life. Maybe there’s more to talk about:
the ripple effects of them being incarcerated tend to be more severe as they’re
more likely to be primary carers to young children and the linchpins of
households.
Male
inmates, say prison staff, generally remain tight-lipped and prefer to spend
their time working out at the gym – whereas the female facility lies empty and
virtually unused. Perhaps unsurprisingly, women are also more likely to spend
their money on chocolate and confectionary (there’s a “buy up” system in which
inmates can order discretionary goods).
“Women often
come in like that,” observes Patrick Aboud with a smile, holding up his pinkie
finger to illustrate their thinness, “And come out overweight or obese. But we
encourage them to take care of their health and appearance. The men tend to
spend buy-ups on tuna or protein supplements, train at the gym and come out
looking fit and lean.”
Bans on tobacco
- the mainstay of “buy-ups” and a habit for a whopping 84 per cent of inmates –
are being rolled out across most states and territories, sparking unrest and
disruption from aggrieved smokers. Demand for nicotine patches is expected to
be high.
Silverwater
Women’s Correctional Centre is well-known as a high-security jail. This is
where women who have committed the most serious offences go. Among current
inmates are convicted child killer Kathleen Folbigg and accused murder Harriet
Wran (daughter of ex-Premier Neville Wran). Not that high-profile names get any
special treatment, says Patrick Aboud.
“They’re
just like any other prisoners,” he says. “But they often feel safer here than
on the street. And in jail, they’ve got status.”
A grey and
ageing facility, Silverwater is surrounded by a forbidding high-security fence.
Photographer Nick Cubbin and I undergo fingerprint, retina and security scans
before entering the prison on a cold and wet Wednesday late last year. We’re
not permitted to bring our mobile phones, nor to photograph outer walls for
security reasons.
Once inside,
we take a tour of the CSI building (that stands for Corrective Services
Industries – nothing to do with the TV crime show), where groups of women are
sorting and reassembling headsets for airlines including Qantas, Air New
Zealand and Emirates.
Bags of used
headphones are delivered by truck each morning. Inmates sit at tables, sorting
through the parts, removing earpads, unknotting wires and grouping them by
model. We’re told the pay is 40c per bag of 50 completed headsets – which works
out for most at a maximum of $4 a day. There’s a bit of rude banter among the
inmates about earmuffs. Before we leave, one of them shouts across to us with a
wide grin, “We’re professional muff divers - put that in your story!”
Aside from
headset recalibration, the prison system is powered by a remarkably
self-sufficient network of industries. In NSW, the inmates’ uniforms or
“greens” are produced by inmates at Goulburn Correctional Centre (and then given
an individual twist by their female wearers – think rolled-up hems, shiny
tracksuits and accessories). Fresh bread comes from Long Bay, pies from
Wellington, apples and beef from Mannus, sandwiches from Bathurst and
vegetables from Muswellbrook. At Emu Plains, there’s a farm with 230 cows
producing milk and dairy products. The fruit is rationed to prevent it being
fermented and turned into alcohol. Correctional officers know the ingenuity of
inmates with time on their hands shouldn’t be underestimated.
“A few years
back,” recounts a security chief, “we had a smell of home brew wafting around
but we couldn’t figure out where it came from. We were looking in the grounds
where it seemed to be coming from. The only thing there was a stake with no
plant attached. So we pulled it up and realised it was a straw connected to two
20 Litre containers of home brew. They [the inmates] weren’t very happy when we
found it.”
At the other
end of the spectrum is the low-security Emu Plains. Located at the foot of the
Blue Mountains, about an hour west of Sydney’s CBD, this prison is green, rural
and quiet. It’s here that some inmates are permitted to live with their babies
and young children.
Some argue
that jail is no place for a baby but Jacaranda Cottage seems a pleasant oasis
nonetheless. About 20 infants and children aged up to 12 live with - or have
overnight stays on weekends and in school holidays with - their mothers here in
a cluster of cottages around a large lawn with a playground. The outer
perimeter resembles a pool fence.
It’s here we
meet softly-spoken Keisha, 22, and her baby son Jack*. She only discovered she
was pregnant during a routine test on admission to prison as a first-time drug
offender and considers herself lucky to have been accepted onto the mothers and
children’s program.
“My life’s
good at Jacaranda,” she says, “because I have been able to bond with my newborn
son.”
Keisha says
she’s benefited from the prison’s parenting programs and facilities, as well as
drug rehabilitation. She gave birth under guard at a nearby public hospital.
Nevertheless,
Keisha wouldn’t choose to be here. Her every move is supervised by government
departments, she points out, she’s a long way from her family in far western
NSW and she doesn’t have any meaningful autonomy. Phone calls, made from
old-school prison pay phones, are monitored.
Other
low-risk prisoners reside at Emu Plains too. Down at the dairy, inmates get up
early and don their gumboots to milk the cows and process the milk into cartons
for distribution across the prison network.
Open-faced
Josephine, 40, who works as a sweeper and was convicted of conspiracy to supply
drugs, grew up in a strict Asian family and was dux of her school.
“I got sick
and tired of studying,” she says, “and I met the wrong people.”
However,
while serving a previous seven year sentence, she gained a Masters degree in
psychology.
“You would
think people would run away from here because the security is low,” she says.
“But once you have that privilege you don’t want to lose it.”
The growing
number of women being sent to jail isn’t the only big change since the 1970s
and 1980s. Conditions inside have changed greatly too.
“Jail has
changed that much since I first went in,” says Allison, who estimates she’s
served about nine years in total with six months as the longest stint. “It used
to be really hard. It’s more like high school now.”
Inmates’
seniority can be measured by their personal identification numbers – known as
master index numbers [MINs] – with those starting with a “1” meaning they were
first admitted at least 30 years ago.
“These
prisoners don’t appreciate modern prisoners,” says Patrick Aboud. “They came in
before reforms and are hardened. They knew where they stood with each other.
The younger ones don’t care – they’re more casual about doing time.”
Health is a
major issue for many inmates, who receive treatment through a dedicated channel
of the public health system. It goes beyond addiction, mental health, dental
problems and chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease.
As seen in
the broader community, the prison population is ageing. At Silverwater Women’s,
for example, inmates range in age from 18 to 70.
“Our prison
population is becoming elderly, particularly the women,” reports Patrick Aboud.
“It’s tough when they are older. You see age-related issues like dementia and
mobility problems.”
Meanwhile,
the rise of the drug “ice” is fuelling to the rise in crime committed by women,
he says. “I work [at the mental health unit] with a lot of girls who are so
sick from ice,” says Allison.
“I have
tried [ice] in the past but it’s not for me because it hasn’t been around for
long enough to know the damage it’s doing. It’s scary – and it’s everywhere
now.
“I don’t
know if the girls in the mental health unit are going to come back from it.”
Seeing the
state of the women in this unit has been “a wake-up call” for Allison’s fellow
inmate Dellah, 42, who tells The Weekly she regrets ever
trying ice.
“I never
touched drugs in my life,” she says. “But my 24-year-old daughter was taking
ice so I decided to try it. I don’t remember any of it. I burned the house
down.”
A new rehab
program – the Yallul Kaliarna Drug and Alcohol Treatment Program - is being
launched when The Weekly visits Dillwynia, a pleasant
orange-bricked facility with sprawling lawns and surrounded by bushland. Then
Attorney-General Brad Hazzard and Corrective Services NSW Commissioner Peter
Severin are giving motivational talks to inmates about turning their lives
around and making a fresh start.
“I don’t
want to look in the mirror and hate the person staring back at me anymore,”
says Emma, 35, who says she started taking heroin at 24 “to shut out the pain
and noise in my head” after her boyfriend died in a motorbike accident and was
convicted for supplying drugs.
“I can see
where my life is leading me. I don’t want to be coming in and out of jail
anymore. I want to get out and help people like myself.”
Many of
these inmates are on a methadone program as they go through rehabilitation.
Nevertheless, prison staff are on constant alert for drugs, which do get into
the hands of inmates via visitors. They may be passed via hand or mouth. A
deterrent, however, is strip searches for all inmates whenever someone is
caught.
“It happens
quite often,” says Silverwater’s Allison. “One does it and we all suffer.”
In another
case of criminal ingenuity, a staffer tells The Weekly, inmates
have been caught retrieving drugs that had been thrown over the outer fence
encased in tennis balls and sewn up in dead birds at Wellington prison in
central NSW.
“The
low-security inmates were picking them up and passing them onto medium-security
inmates for distribution,” he says.
Being locked
up causes far more shame and stigma for women than it does for men, says Deidre
Hyslop, then principle advisor to women offenders for Corrective Services NSW.
“One of the
biggest issues is rejection from family and community,” she says. “I think it’s
because they’ve committed a criminal offence - but then also an additional
offence against society’s views of what being a woman is.”
This double
standard is especially poignant during visiting hours.
“The men get
huge support from family,” says Deirdre Hyslop.
“[At Long
Bay prison] there would be trails of women coming to visit: partners, mums,
aunties and children. But the women inmates don’t get the same thing. More
often, it’s friends they met in custody coming back to visit them.”
Boyfriends,
husbands and partners don’t tend to hang around for long, note prison staff.
Life doesn’t
necessarily get any easier when women are released either. Accommodation is the
biggest issue, says Karon Meehan, acting manager of services and programs at
Silverwater Women’s.
“Unless they
have got support outside in the community, they often have got nowhere to
sleep. And it can be very hard for them to get housing.”
Finding and
keeping a job with a stint in jail on your CV isn’t easy either.
“I’ve heard
stories of women who’d been doing really well,” says Deirdre Hyslop, “then
someone finds out [they’ve spent time in prison] and word gets out. Then they
lose their job, go back to crime and fall apart.”
Meanwhile,
for prison staff, says Patrick Aboud, there’s little public recognition yet
morale and camaraderie are strong.
“No-one
wants to hear about prisons,” he says. “There’s a ‘lock them up and throw away
the key’ attitude. Yet there are a lot of dedicated staff who go above and
beyond the call of duty. Their role is to maintain order but we have some
guards who bathe and shower the mentally ill. We also have a laugh, we get
along with the inmates. Everyone is a human being at the end of the day.”
When The
Weekly leaves Silverwater Women’s to return to the relative warmth and
comfort of our car, an experienced officer gives us a nod and a parting word.
“You see the
same faces coming in and out,” he tells us. “They’ll do their time and leave.
Then it gets cold, they might be sleeping rough and life gets on top of them.
At least in here they get a roof over their heads and three meals a day. And
they’re not alone.”
And so the cycle continues.