92.9 - Em's Blog - Show Feature
Bandyup Womens Prison
Spending the afternoon at Bandiyup women's prison was one occasion in my life I won't soon forget.
I wasn't really sure what to expect, I am ashamed to admit I had visions of striped uniforms and dirty looking women running their mugs along the bars of their cell. What I found was a community of women making the best of a pretty awful situation.
Don't get me wrong, there are some prisoners in Bandiyup that should never be allowed to mix with the general public again. However there are also prisoners who made one stupid decision and as a result found themselves locked behind bars away from their loved ones for a considerable amount of time.
Driving along Middle Swan Rd I instantly noticed the cyclone fencing and razor wire. I felt a little nervous and uneasy about what I was about to see. The only experience I have had with any jail was a couple of episodes of Prison Break and watching Prisoner as a kid.
We entered through a small gate and walked across what looked like a train track then through another small gate under the watchful eye of several guards. We were taken to the security check point and given personal security alarms; they were like garage door remote controls and attached to the waist of your pants. A large red button was on the remote and was to be pushed if at anytime we felt we were in danger. (Yes, you can imagine my reaction to this eyes popping, heart racing, and sweat beading)
I was then taken to meet Superintendent Marie Chatwin, an obvious veteran of the correctional services. Please don't misunderstand me; Marie was lovely however she had an air of discipline and authority about her that screamed. Don't screw with me.
I doubt Marie has ever taken any crap from anyone in her life.
Marie took me through prison life, we discussed some of her more high profile prisoners (sorry guys I agreed to keep that one between her and I) and I fired about 5000 questions at her. Ranging from: Has anyone tried to shank you?to Can the girls buy some lip gloss should the need strike?
Marie was very quick to point out that while going to prison was the punishment given to these women, their time there didn't need to be horrible. Many of the prisoners worked to make money ($50 a week) by gardening or working in the laundry and some sewed cushions for breast cancer survivors. Others made knickers and socks for the local women's shelter. Courses are available and it seems Bandiyup is very much about rehabilitating these women rather than constantly reprimanding them.
The jail seemed to be run like a small village, all the prisoners have timetables to follow.I saw an art room, gym, canteen, laundry and other facilities I did not expect to see in a prison.
The cells were pretty scary; I am not going to paint a rosy picture here. They were incredibly small, dark, and cold and I don't know if I would be able to get through the mandatory 12 hour lockdown that happens each night.
There is a real air of sadness that hangs over the jail; a lot of the women there seem to be carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders.
If you are a mother - I want you to think about all the responsibilities you have in your life. Do you pay the bills? Cook dinner? Make the lunches for school? Drop off the kids and them pick them up?The list is probably endless right?Now I want you to imagine going to court, being convicted and being sent straight to jail with no one to help you carry out that endless list on the outside. That is the situation a lot of these women find themselves in; they arrive at the jail in a state of panic because they have no-one to pick their children up from school. I had absolutely no appreciation for that until going into Bandiyup and actually putting myself in their shoes.
I was surprised at how prisoners were able to roam the grounds fairly freely and how they mixed those in there for minor offences with murderers and drug dealers. There were a lot of young women in there, and that really shocked me. If I saw them in the street I would never have picked them for inmates at a maximum security jail.
I was then taken to The Nursery. This is where inmates who have either given birth in the jail or chosen to take their infant in with them stay. You are able to keep your children in with you up until they turn 1 and then they must go to be with a relative, or worst case scenario put into foster care. I could not think of a worse place to raise a child, could you? However isn't a child best of with their Mother? I thought long and hard about wether or not I could part with Odie or Chella in the first 12 months of their life and I can't 100% say that I would have been able to let them go. The nursery was a bit smelly and pretty depressing to be honest, it needed a good bottle of disinfectant and a visit from renovation rescue.
Now I hear some of you screaming It sounds like a holiday camp, why should they have a decent life I can assure you Bandiyup women's prison is FAR from a holiday camp, these women are locked down for 12 hours every night. Told when to eat, work and sleep it is a complete deprivation on freedom.
I want you all to really consider this: most of these women will enter back into society, YOUR society.Shop at your grocery store, their kids may even go to school with your kids. Wouldn't you rather these women be rehabilitated, educated and counselled so that they can be contributing, functioning members of the community when they get out of prison? If we took the attitude of making their lives hell for their entire stay in prison, the reality is they will come out far worse than how they went in. The prison tries to look at why a woman commits a crime and addresses that issue. Be it drugs or a psychological problem.
For those criminals who have committed unspeakable acts and will never again be apart of our world, I can promise you all there is a certain type of in house justice that goes on. Those women are often ostracised from the group and spend a lot of time on their own.
I have thought about this from every angle. What if one of these women was in Bandiyup because she got behind the wheel of her car and caused an accident that killed someone I loved? Would I be as open minded and accepting as I am being now?
Maybe not at first, however I'd like to think I'd be able to work through that and realise she's probably just like me and made a terrible mistake that will stay with her as it would me for the rest of her life.
I hope you got something out of the interview, I hope it didn't upset anyone who has suffered a loss at the hand of an in-mate in Bandiyup prison. They are criminals, they are doing their time I am by no means glorifying that; I just want you to remember that they are humans as well.
There but for the grace of god go I; John Bradford (b. 1510 - d. 1555)
Em.
