By Zanny Begg
SYDNEY — "I wrote to the minister for Corrective Services complaining about how visitors to prisons are treated, and I was rung by the superintendent and told not to write any more letters. A week later, my dog was hung from my front fence. The dog survived. I didn't tell my husband, and they came a week later and did it again. For a year I was petrified. But I still kept going to the prison and I still kept fighting."
This is how Rose Stephens, whose husband is in Windsor (NSW) prison, described her experience. Stephens has broken the silence that surrounds the treatment of visitors to prisons.
Thousands of people, mostly women, visit prisoners in jails across NSW. Relatives, friends, lovers, wives, husbands and children all go behind bars to see someone they love. These visits form a vital link between prisoners and the rest of the community, keeping alive the relationships essential for anyone's emotional support. For many prisoners, the contact with those outside is what enables them to survive the time inside.
According to a submission compiled by Stephens, however, Corrective Services has made no effort to support visitors to prisons. Stephens claims that in fact, "We are not welcomed. We are merely tolerated and treated as a necessary nuisance."
Visitors often have to travel long distances. Some jails are situated in isolated or even bush settings with little or no public transport. Stephens describes women being forced to hitchhike to get from the nearest train station to the jail.
Visitors are often forced to queue outside before the gates open. Stephens says she has been forced to wait for hours in the rain or burning sunshine. No shelter has been provided, she told Green Left Weekly, and hats and sunglasses can be banned for security reasons. Mothers with young children are not allowed to bring toys into the prison, so they are "driven mad" by bored children.
Visitors can even be denied simple things like tea and coffee while they wait for their turn. Food is provided, but can be very expensive for people on a pension. Visitors are forced to sit on chairs bolted to the floor metres apart. Women have to have their children's nappies searched before they can enter the visiting area.
Some women make the trip only to find that their inmate has been transferred to another jail or there is a cell check or some other reason why they can't visit. No prior warning is given. Stephens witnessed one young woman barred for failing to have sufficient identification; she was let in only after Stephens assisted her in demanding her rights.
Stephens describes her own experience: "I have been obstructed from visits, I have been yelled at and harassed, I have been told my husband wasn't there when he was, I have been lied to, I have had mail interference ... You become very isolated and frightened."
Many women are too frightened to complain. "Kate" (not her real name) told Green Left Weekly she had tried to complain about visitor conditions but found it only bought retribution on her husband. Kate was approached by a prison welfare officer for sexual favours. He rang her five times at her home. When Kate told her husband he became extremely angry. In response the officer, who happened to be on the classification board at the time, reclassified Kate's husband and he was shipped out to Long Bay jail.
When Kate lodged a complaint with Corrective Services, she was told, "Well, your husband has been in for a long time now. You would be pretty vulnerable then, wouldn't you."
"Women are frightened that their loved ones are going to be punished or they will be punished themselves if they speak up", Kate told Green Left Weekly.
What angers Stephens is the unaccountability of Corrective Services "Who can you report the Corrective Services to?", she asks.
In an effort to improve the conditions for visitors, Stephens tried writing to officials. "The chain of command is an excuse for passing the buck", she explained. "You go from one level to the next and of course you never reach the right level, because there is no right level to reach ... I have a pile of letters an inch thick. Most have never been answered".
Stephens argues that visitors actually provide Corrective Services with a service, helping to rehabilitate the inmate and keep a "happier prison population". She tried to explain this to a prison officer once but was told she was only a visitor. "I have had a year and a half of being told I am only a visitor. I have learnt what only a visitor means. I am virtually a criminal by association."
Despite Corrective Services' insensitivity to visitors' complaints its own research indicates the vital role that visitors play in prisoner rehabilitation. One study found that "maintaining family ties during the incarceration of an offender will reduce institutionalisation during imprisonment and recidivism and parole failure after release".
Stephens, who describes the prison system as "punitive and negative", remains very critical of the Corrective Services approach to rehabilitation; "I have done welfare work for the last 20 years", she explains. "Most people in prison grew up in institutions. Nobody is rehabilitating them. They grow up in a college of crime. Their professors are the officers and the system."
[CEFTAA will be holding a meeting of visitors to prisons on the November 30 at 391 Sussex St, Sydney, to support women who feel isolated by their situation and to organise actions to change visitors' conditions. Phone Zanny Begg on (02) 281 5100 for more information.]