White Collar Dreaming

Parallel Lines:
The Two Different Worlds on offer in Australian Women’s Pr

isons

A few years ago, an inmate in a Western Australian prison etched her initials onto the barrel of a syringe she had smuggled in. Upon her release, she donated the needle to a friend who still had time to serve. Almost a year later the woman re-offended and returned to the prison. Within hours she was offered heroin…in a syringe bearing her own initials on the barrel.

The prison was Bandyup – Australia’s only minimum-, medium- and maximum-security facility for women – but the story is not unusual. In the last 10 years, Australia’s female imprisonment rate has risen by more than 60% (compared with 15% for men). It’s no coincidence that heroin use among women has risen just as steadily.

And despite the permanent presence of sniffer dogs, heroin is a part of life at Bandyup. According to a health worker, the same syringes may have been circulating within the prison for almost four years. The ‘girls’ – as the inmates are called, even if they are grandmothers – can get clean condoms but no clean syringes. And while the jail has a drug-free unit (it’s like living in a “better suburb,” says one guard), it’s only available to those who pass a urine test – and most never take up the offer.

Coils of razor wire leave little doubt as to the purpose of the Bandyup compound. Floodlights loom above the fence. Between these two perimeters is an expanse of grey gravel. Crunching across this wasteland, I imagine many hearts have sunk here. When prisoners act up, they are threatened with the prospect of being moved up north to one of Western Australia’s four remote desert prisons. “It never happens, but it’s enough to quieten them down,” says a guard. Up north, female prisoners must share the facilities with men, and endure stricter regimes than their male counterparts. “Because pregnancies are a bad look,” one official explains.

In the office of Bandyup’s superintendent, Marie Chatwin, a set of steak knives are laid out on the desk. “They need to go into the kitchen,” she laughs, “and I want to see personally they all get attached properly to the wall.” Having worked in male prisons for 20 years, she freely admits to finder female prisoners harder to handle. “The men are much more polite. Women are unpredictable. More often than not their only weapon is their mouth, and, boy, they use it.” Women prisoners are also far more anxious about what’s going on outside, Chatwin believes. “The men just leave the loose ends when they go to jail,” she says. “But for women, more often than not, no one is picking up the pieces on the outside. Many do their time and come out to find the house, children and belongings gone.”

At the beginning of our tour, Chatwin waves her hand as if surveying the land. “The average muster is about 150 women. About 45% are indigenous. Once we had three generations of the one mob in here at the same time,” she says. The vast majority of women in Australia’s prison system are mothers and/or grandmothers. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, around 60% of female inmates have children under 16, most of whom end up following in mum’s footsteps.

“We unlock the cells at 7am,” Chatwin continues. “The girls have to make a movement so the guards can see there is a live body.” Two weeks before our visit, a woman suicided in her cell. But her nightmare wasn’t this place – she was inside for killing her three children. We are shown padded cells with tear-proof sheets and a guard demonstrates a surveillance camera that can observe an inmate at all times. What does it see? The guard shrugs: “Most of the time the girls just hide under their doonas.”

In the medical waiting area, there is a room where prisoners must sit for 10 minutes after swigging their methadone. A tampon in the mouth is one trick the women use to absorb the drug and sell it on later for injecting. For many, jail presents a rare opportunity to see a doctor and a dentist. Statistics show female prisoners across Australia have an unusually high rate of abnormal cells within the cervix, with many never having had a pap smear outside jail. The rotten teeth of many addicts are often only ever removed in jail, and prisoners who are inside long enough can see an orthodontist.

Chatwin describes Bandyup as a bit like a revolving door. “Many women are serving one- to two- year sentences and we see most women twice, at least,” she says. “Those with 20 years are generally white housewives and mothers in for revenge killings.”

Back in the yard, a group of women squeeze out of a doorway while another heads in the other direction. “Fuck you then you cunt!” one of the group screams at the lone inmate’s back. The group notice us and flash a brilliant unanimous smile. “Not you, miss,” they chime sarcastically. They charge off, their uniform blue tracksuit pants rolled up above the knees. Shrugging her shoulders, Chatwin points out the protection unit with barbed wire over its roof.  This is where the ‘rock spiders’ go – those committed for sexual crimes against children. “They wouldn’t last a second out here,” says the superintendent. “They can stay in there as long as they like, but…” I finish the sentence for her: “Eventually they have to come out.” Chatwin nods.

I am later told that women who have accrued drug debts also go to the protection unit to avoid being beaten up. The health worker says she is always telling the women, especially the drug users, to look after their ‘prisoner’s purse’ (vagina). “Rape is not common, but domestic violence is,” she says. “Often the only times a girl will get penetrated by force is if other prisoners are trying to get her gear (drugs).”

The prisoner provides women with ‘dental dams’ – a kind of cling wrap cover used to practise safe sex. Condoms are provided for putting over fingers, vegetables and whatever other objects the imagination can enlist. But safe sex and safe needle practise is low on the scale of concern at Bandyup. Just as 70% of female prisoners Australia-wide have hepatitis C, so too do 70% of Bandyup’s inmates. (Around 50% of Australia’s male prisoners have the virus.)

Chatwin leads us toward the drug-free cells, past a ruined barbeque with melted buttons, and a mailbox the women can use to post confidential complaints to the ombudsman. All the guards stand as the superintendent ushers us into the drug-free unit. In one of the cells, she points out the shower. “That’s one of the privileges of being in the drug-free unit,” she says. “The rest of the girls shower together and without privacy.” There are sprigs of greenery in jars on a windowsill, and a purple crocheted toilet seat cover.

In the self-contained units aimed at rewarding “good behaviour and good industry,” I am introduced to a woman with wispy white hair. She shows me her cell filled with Celtic symbols, crystals, dragons and dream catchers. She chats amicably to Chatwin about an essay she is trying to finish, but there is something measured about the way the super responds to her. After 10 minutes of banter about monastic medieval history I finally remember who this prisoner is. I read about her in the papers. I remember court drawings of her. She was convicted for plotting with her son to murder her husband.

Bandyup has four beds for nursing mothers, although only babies under 12 months old are allowed. “That’s all the beds we need here,” says Chatwin. “For some of these girls, the child is better off without them. The reality is, with the kid comes the money. That’s all they care about.”

In a courtyard surrounded by some very basic cells we are shown where the new girls go. “Some prisoners will come in and talk to them, show them the ropes,” says Chatwin. “A lot of the girls are very anxious when they get here. Often they’ve sobered up for the first time in years.” One woman’s hand I shake is covered in blurred tattoos. Getting such artwork done on the inside used to be a given, but now if inmates are caught with fresh tattoos they are charged with failing to meet Occupational Health & Safety standards.

On the way back we tiptoe down a wet half-mopped corridor. “You’re doing a good job,” Chatwin says genuinely to an indigenous inmate with a voluptuous body and big eyes under her frizzy hair. The woman leans on her mop, looking dopey and shy as we pass, but when we’re almost around the corner I look back and catch her rolling her eyes.

*

As one of only four dedicated women’s prisons in Australia, Bandyup is running out of space. Inmates have been known to sleep in the gymnasium; others have slept like sardines in their cells, or with their heads propped up against the toilet.

“Bandyup is just another bloke’s prison tinkered for women as an afterthought,” says Christine Ginbey, superintendent of Boronia, a $14 million prison with a difference. Built along the lines of a typical neighbourhood in suburban Perth, Boronia is a pre-release centre designed to ease prisoners back into society. “All around the world, prison resources and programmes are directed at high-risk offenders such as sexual and violent repeat offenders,” says Ginbey, a redhead with sharp blue eyes. “Few women fit these categories.” Rather, she adds, most female prisoners have been on the receiving end of these crimes.

The Boronia site was once home to a boys’ juvenile justice centre; old photos of the compound show youths slouching down the low-slung corridors as if the sky was falling in on them. Today the area could be easily mistaken for a brand new housing estate. Only the surveillance cameras – powerful enough to zoom in on a keyhole from 1000 metres – give it away. Those inside are called residents, not inmates, and the guards are staff, not ‘screws’. Boronia’s 70 residents set their own alarms, do their own cooking and washing up, and put themselves to bed. Staff are trained to help with shopping, budgeting and cohabiting. For some residents these are basic rights they never had in the first place. Children up to five years old are also allowed to live with their mothers at Boronia. “But,” as Ginbey says, “the child is not to be imprisoned with mum, the child goes into the community for activities such as day care.” In 2005, Boronia reported a re-offending rate of 10%, well below the national average for all prisons of 45%. Yet the centre has met with angry protest groups with placards reading ‘What about our children?’ During his failed election campaign last year, the then Western Australian Liberal opposition leader Colin Barnett even vowed to close down Boronia, because it “is not what prison is about.”

For Ginbey, the problem is that the wider community has little understanding of how the prison system works. Or doesn’t work. Ever since Boronia opened she has made a point of trooping locals through by the hundreds, leading elderly people on golf buggies and electric chairs, and introducing them to the inmates. Two years on, the centre seems to have won over the community. “For some of the elderly locals, the women at Boronia have provided a captive audience,” Ginbey laughs. “Some of them come in and teach beading or knitting, and one man holds his own jazz appreciation class.”

During the planning stages for Boronia, Ginbey and her team were determined to avoid the traditional prison aesthetic. “We found it difficult to not make the facility look nice,” she says. “It’s not that we want architectural awards – we want normal.” Part of ‘normal’ means having more than one way of walking to and from places. “That way, if you’re having a blue with someone, you can avoid them. In Bandyup it’s impossible to avoid a confrontation. A prisoner gets caught in too many dead-ends.”

Boronia’s design has also helped do away with the demeaning practise of strip-searches. “We made a point of not building in any possible space within the reception for cubicles to shower and strip-search new arrivals and visitors,” Ginbey explains. “We don’t want any possibility for procedures to revert back in the future.” Instead, Boronia has a much higher rate of urine tests than other prisons, and the women are tested each day for alcohol use. “We have the lowest level of drug use in WA prison system. In a sense the prisoners are our best security,” Ginbey says.

‘Kathy’, a Boronia resident, admits she has become a bit of a ‘dobber’ since settling in ten months ago. “We’re treated like humans and you just don’t want to ruin it,” she explains. “Some new prisoners will come in and say ‘Let’s make a brew’, or ‘What are the screws like?’ But they don’t know nothing about how it is here, and they work it out.” Or they get sent back to places like Bandyup. Earlier in the year, two new arrivals at Boronia climbed the fence and were met on the other side by security. They were taken back to maximum security that night. “This here, this is a chance. And sure, some of us will fuck it up, but we don’t forget the offer of a chance,” says Kathy.

The education officer at Boronia agrees. “I asked one indigenous woman to write down what she thought about a particular subject and she sat at her desk for days. I thought ‘Oh shit, I’ve set her too hard a task’ and kept asking if she needed help. She sent me away and at the end of the week brought me back twenty pages on what it felt like to be asked what she thought. No one had ever asked her opinion on anything. She was thirty-eight years old.”

A former heroin addict, Kathy has been in and out of jail for the last 12 years. “When I think about the things I’ve done, it’s hard to believe I’m talking about me,” she says. “I compare what I’ve done to the women who are in here for 20 years after killing their husband. They’ve been ridiculed all their lives by violent men. For them, it wasn’t a lifestyle choice. They’re relieved to be here. I guess that’s the weird thing. I get less time, but I feel like I had more choice in my situation.” Kathy has two young sons, and says she has been clean for the last four years. “Yes I’ve said it before – just to get out and to let ‘em hear what they want to hear. But something has shifted. I think I’m tired. I want to be there for my boys if it’s not too late.”

So far, 32 toddlers have made Boronia home and many older children have visited. In most prisons, such visits are as traumatising for the family as the inmate. “We’ve tried to make the visits as welcoming as possible with a play area for the kids,” says Ginbey. “And when they stay over, the child can stay in mum’s room, not in some strange place that is foreign to both mother and child.” Visitors can also meet with residents at Café Boronia, overlooking the facility.

Kathy describes how in the months before being released from Boronia, the women can start applying for jobs and even attend job interviews. “When you’re out, you feel like you got ‘prisoner’ stamped on your forehead. It’s hard not to fall back into old habits,” she says, “So it’s nice to get a head-start.” Boronia’s residents are allowed to leave the premises to work at nearby community centres and women’s refuges, and pick up their children from care. Their cargo pants and white polo tops are intentionally subtle.

When someone from Boronia re-offends, it is seen as a failure on the centre’s part, but Ginbey argues that most re-offending charges have been lesser crimes than the original stint. “One woman’s child died when she was on the outside and her first thought was to call Boronia for help. She returned to smack and was eventually put back in jail. On the hard face of it, that is considered our failure – but grief does horrible things to people. We try and teach the women to be resilient.”

‘Nell’ is another Boronia stalwart. An Aboriginal woman whose father was a Scot, she grew up along the yellow wheat belt across Australia’s middle. Her brown eyes are mottled with blue cataracts. About a month ago, some bush tucker was brought into Boronia for the Indigenous women as a special treat. Nell smiles. “It’s been a long time between proper bush food. I haven’t been home in 15 years. When I get out, we’ll go back and clean up the family graves,” she pauses. “That’s if they don’t nab me on something else.” Her most recent conviction was based on DNA evidence. “I’d just finished my sentence and had been out for a couple days when they came back and got me. They matched my blood with an incident years ago. I don’t remember it,” she says, shrugging. “I’m not saying I didn’t do it. But people don’t believe in (memory) blackouts. My problem is alcohol and ‘benzos’ (benzodiazepines – sleeping pills or tranquillisers).”

A former Bandyup inmate, Nell has three boys who have all done time. “I worry about my boys,” she says. “I haven’t been there for them. My daughter though – she’s the opposite of me. It’s like she looked in the mirror and said ‘No, I won’t become like my mum.’” At Boronia, Nell has learnt to read and write, something she has been fudging for most of her life. “That’s something I would never have had the chance to do outside,” she says. “We also learn about cognitive behaviour. That might come natural for some of you out there, but most of us here need to learn it. Things like staying with a thug is what most of us think we deserve. And patience,” she chuckles. “I’ve learnt lots about patience.”

Perhaps Australia’s prison system has learnt something too. Boronia’s blueprint is being considered for use in remote Aboriginal communities as well as several men’s minimum-security prisons. And, inspired by the prison’s use of space in its units, Western Australia’s public-housing authority is even considering modifying its standard home design.

Meanwhile on the streets of Boronia there’s a certain kind of normality in the air. Ginbey is recalling the time the local fire brigade called in to investigate a smoke detector triggered by burning toast. Ginbey was at Boronia’s reception desk to meet the fireman “and I kid you not, his chest was bare under his braces!” She told the young man there was no way he was coming into the facility like that - not unless he wanted the toast being burnt everyday. “I demanded one of the older fellas come in. Even then, the women stopped and stared him out. Some flicked their hair, and called out, ‘I’ve gotta fire you can put out!’ One woman pretended to swoon and fanned herself as he passed, ‘Ooh I’m burning up over here officer!’”

Yes, Boronia may well be the promised land of women’s prison. But as the superintendent back at Bandyup told me: “The reality is, most of these girls aren’t going to Boronia.”