Thursday 14 October
Depiction of prison life ‘outrageous’

While West family matriarch Sheryl, from popular TV show Outrageous Fortune, spends her time in prison making friends by sharing home baking laced with cannabis, calling home from a mobile phone in her cell, and organising lingerie shows in the visits centre, the reality of life inside a women’s prison is quite different.

“We manage around 550 female prisoners in three prisons in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. While many prisoners would identify with Sheryl’s difficulties in keeping her partner out of the arms of other women and her family together while she is separated from them, the similarities probably end there,” says Assistant Regional Manager Vicki Muir.

“Women generally come to prison from backgrounds of relationship difficulties and alcohol and substance abuse. A large number have been abused physically, sexually or psychologically. Despite being small in number when compared to the male prison population, female prisoners have more complex issues related to their offending and social roles.”
“The rate of reoffending is lower for women than it is for men, but we still have work to do in decreasing it further. Around 19 percent of women are re-imprisoned in the two years following their release from jail, compared with 36 percent of men.”
At Auckland Women’s in Wiri, most prisoners are engaged in rehabilitation programmes, work opportunities or working on community projects like knitting blankets for new babies born in the Counties Manukau region.
“Through the delivery of rehabilitation programmes, prisoners are helped to recognise and address the causes of their offending. Prisoners often have low levels of literacy and numeracy, so education programmes teach the women basic reading, writing and maths. Life skills programmes, often run by volunteers, teach the women cooking, budgeting and parenting skills that can help them reintegrate to life outside of prison.
“Through Corrections Inmate Employment we also train and upskill prisoners in areas such as photocopier assembly and maintenance so that they have a realistic chance at gaining, and keeping, employment after leaving prison.”
“Prisoners don’t have cellphones in their cells because we have cellphone blocking technology which renders them useless. We also have a single point of entry into the prison and every person entering the secure perimeter passes through that, including prisoners’ family members, our staff, and lawyers. We also use specialist search dogs that are trained to detect certain odours down to parts per trillion so anyone trying to trying to bring in cannabis-laced afghans would be caught.”

“Prisoners visits with their family and friends are often focussed around children – a lot of female prisoners have young children, so we try and make the environment as safe for the them as possible, so no racy lingerie strip shows!”

“While Outrageous Fortune is very funny, and great entertainment, it is important to remember that prison isn’t the same as it’s shown in the show, or on Prison Break or Bad Girls.”

ENDS

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