Female Inmates On What They Wish They Could Tell Their Younger Selves

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Female Inmates On What They Wish They Could Tell Their Younger Selves

We went inside New Zealand's largest women's prison to find out.

Auckland Region Women's Corrections Facility in Manukau—with a capacity of 462 prisoners—is New Zealand's largest female prison. Weirdly, though, it feels more like an all-women polytechnic: its buildings are painted in calming institutional greys, knots of prisoners mill about them, and its security is strikingly unobtrusive.

And it's an industrious sort of place. There was the beep-beep-beep of reversing forklifts as prisoners learned how to drive them; there was the bustle of activity in the warehouse—staffed by inmates—where goods approved for prisoner purchase are stored and distributed. Other women were training mobility dogs to help the physically impaired negotiate life, the dogs obediently opening doors; another woman doused the prison beehive in a haze of smoke.

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As VICE meandered through this environment in the company of Corrections staff, we wanted to know about regret, the lives that had brought people here, and any advice the inmates—we could neither photograph nor identify them—had to share.

What advice would you give your younger self?
"Don't be afraid to speak to somebody about your problems. There's somebody out there that will listen. And I tell that to lots of girls who are in here. That's the biggest one. For myself, I didn't know who to turn to, and it led me here. So, yeah, there is somebody that will listen and someone that will believe you."

If you had children, what advice would you give them?
"The life I had was really isolated and protected and things like that so I didn't have a wide spectrum of options for employment—I thought you could pretty much be a policeman or a criminal. I don't have children but if I did then that's what I'd want to do, just show them a wide horizon of things that they can do so they can choose where they fit in and what sort of interests they have and things like that. As far as the choices that I've made in my life, I wouldn't go back in time and change anything because I'm a better person for it. What I've been through now, I'm stronger. I wouldn't say much. Life's life."

Has life turned the way you thought it would?
"I never thought I'd be in prison, but it's probably what I needed. It's given me the chance to sit back and reflect on the choices that I've made because it's my fault I'm here, so I can't blame anybody else and only I can change where I'm going. I'm in here for supplying meth. Not my finest hour, but I can only strive to achieve more. I don't want my kids to just think of me as a drug dealer. I wanna go back with something to give society instead of taking."

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What would be your message for young women?
"Believe in yourself; you've got to believe in yourself. You see, I didn't and I didn't accept myself—I didn't like myself. For me it's been about getting to know myself, really, and just making better choices. I knew I was doing wrong, but I still did it. I just did what people wanted me to do. So it's not about people-pleasing, it's about pleasing yourself."

What would you say to your younger self?
"I'm still young [18], so… I think I should give this self some advice as well, but I don't know what that is. I don't know; I'm just young."

What's your biggest regret in life?
"Hurting my family. I missed my first grandchild's birth. There are a lot of mums in here with five, nine children. My cellmate has nine children, little ones up to big ones. It's sad. My son comes in the school holidays—he just limits it to the school holidays. It's hard. It's hard to watch him go. Some kids are crying, clinging to their mums. It teaches you, once you get out, not to take those small things for granted. You know: spending that time with your kids and that. But you make some nice friends. You meet some women from different places, which makes the time go faster."

What do you wish you could have told yourself when you were younger? 
"Perhaps just use your life wisely and think twice before you do anything silly and make mistakes like I did. But I have come a long way in a short time since I've been in here. Prison is what you decide to take from it. You can better yourself from being here. I had come out of a rough relationship before I was in prison—I got into drugs, and that's what brought me here. It was late in life that I went through that and I've definitely got the opportunity in here to make the most of what Corrections has to offer."

If you could have done anything differently, what would it be?
"Not getting in the car when the murder happened. I'm here for murder. I was the driver. Even though I wasn't the one that did the crime. Unfortunately, I'm in here for a very long time."

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