At Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre, the prison day for inmates begins at 8:15am. Officers pass through the wings of the jail, taking a headcount of inmates locked into their cells 17 hours earlier.
The women awaken in their cells, just a few metres wide and deep. “You've got your bunks, your shower, your toilet, your basin and your bench,” says Meagan*, an inmate serving a two-year sentence for reckless wounding. “They're not very spacey, very tight confinements little space, but they're not bad cells.”
They also contain a television set behind glass. A select few prisoners will have a cell of their own, but most will share with one other peer. Showers are taken, cells are cleaned and breakfast is eaten.
As part of Insight’s two-part special, , host Jenny Brockie and an all-female team of producers were given a rare glimpse into daily life inside a women’s maximum security prison. Women spoke candidly about the lives behind bars and the rigid routine they must follow.
A cell at Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre Source: Insight
After breakfast, the inmates are free to roam through their assigned wings and grassy areas until 11:30am, when they are locked back into their cells for lunch. The food is “shit, but it's liveable,” says Meagan. “We call it ‘slop in a box’ ... you get salads Wednesday and Fridays, you know. The salads are better than the hot meals.” Milk comes fresh from the dairy run by the minimum security prisoners half an hour away at Emu Plains.
Women who have jobs within the prison complete their duties separately until afternoon lock-up. Some are maintenance workers in different sections of the complex and its grounds, while others work in food services. A small number work for Corrective Service Industries, untangling and re-packaging Qantas headsets. The women can earn between $24.60 and $70.55 a week to work in prison.
Salads at the prison Source: Insight
Visits are allowed from 8.30am to 11.15am, or 12.30pm to 3pm, Thursday through Sunday. Protection and extreme high-risk visits are given separate, specific times, as are visits from children: Wednesdays, between 8.15am and 11.45am.
In one visitation space, there is no contact, with glass separating the inmate from the visitor. In another area, chairs are clustered together for a more intimate visit, with coloured seats indicating the place where the prisoner must sit, facing the watching guards. There is also a playroom, with books and toys, for children.
A window between 12:30pm and 3:15pm is the last time the women have outside their cells before being locked away for the afternoon and night. They fill the time with books, exercise, letters, cards and prison-run programs. Each wing has its own basic cooking facilities: a fry pan and a microwave, which they use to heat or cook “buy-ups”: small food items purchased from an allowance provided by outside support or a work assignment within the prison.
Small balconies are attached to each cell, where the prisoners sit into the night, chatting with neighbours. Most are in bed by 7:30pm.
Within this routine exists a network of relationships and hierarchies, as Insight discovered.
Prisoners inside a cell in the induction unit Source: Insight
“Jail is a community of itself, and there’s politics within that community as well,” says Nicole, a senior corrections officer.
Jail is a community of itself, and there’s politics within that community as well
The newest inmates, coming through induction, are colloquially known as “freshies”. “They’re scared if they’re new receptions,” says Nicole. “It’s very daunting if they’ve never been in jail before and they may come into custody for a shop lifting charge and be in with someone on a more serious offence.”
While Silverwater is maximum security, and the bulk of its long-term prisoners are category four (on a scale of two to five), they often live alongside unsentenced women who may only be classified as a low-risk category two. The most convictions among the prisoners are drug offences (19.8 per cent), followed by acts causing injury (17.9 per cent), theft charges (9.2 per cent) and murder, manslaughter and related offences (8.9 per cent).
“Dogs” are women who “snitch” to officers or other prisoners; those who don’t turn a blind eye to certain things in the prison. “I can't stand them,” says Shannon*, another inmate interviewed by Insight. “They drive me up the wall. I just can't stand the fact that we're all in here together and the last thing you need to do is go dobbing on each other.”
“We're in jail, we're not at boot camp or boarding school. There's always going to be illegal activity happening but absolutely no one's right as an inmate to go and run back to the screws to tell them.”
“They can get bashed,” says Meagan. “Depends really what the person they're giving up wants to do about it.” Meagan admits she has been one to deliver this sentence to a fellow inmate who she alleges was spreading false rumours about her.
'Shannon' speaking with Insight. Source: Insight
“I broke her nose, I split her bottom lip and broke two fingers.”
A “scrim”, on the other hand, is someone who might pander to an officer. “A dog's going to give you up where a scrim will just suck up [to] the officer's arse to get things,” describes Meagan. “It's not anything big, it could be a bit of note pad or an extra toilet roll or, you know, things that within the jail itself that we're entitled to anyway but [are] limited.”
I broke her nose, I split her bottom lip and broke two fingers
Behind these colloquial labels and the categories assigned by Corrective Services NSW are a number of trends that run through Australian female prison populations.
According to by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, women enter prison “extremely disadvantaged”, with poor mental health, few socioeconomic opportunities, substance abuse and being primary carers for their children. “Many of these outcomes are the consequences associated with past histories of abuse/assault.”
The research notes that women incarcerated have high levels of victimisation, particularly in relation to sexual abuse. One in four women report histories of childhood sexual abuse, while one-quarter to one-third of women in community corrections said they had experienced unwanted or forced sexual activity.
of female prisoners also report histories of mental health problems, and many of the women Insight talked to spoke of ongoing problems with anxiety and depression. More serious disorders such as borderline personality disorder, major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder have also been seen as characteristic of women in jail.
Recidivism among female prisoners is on the rise, too. According to Corrective Services NSW, 42.9 per cent of women released from NSW prisons are returning to the system.
“I'd rather be in jail any day than rehab,” says Shannon, who is back in jail after deliberately breaching her parole by leaving a treatment program for her ice addiction. “At least you know where you stand here.”
“I'd rather be in maximum security than minimum security … I'm really good when I'm told what to do in these sorts of situations. I like the fact that there's authority,” she says.
“I don't want it to be such an easy ride for me while I'm in here.”
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*Names have been changed
