Outside of drugs, food was the No. 1 priority for most women in DPFC, and as the A5 billet it was my problem when women started complaining that they weren’t getting their daily serves of yoghurt. It didn’t take long to work out a crim named Michelle was the blockage in the dairy supply line. She had taken it upon herself to ration A5’s yoghurt, but instead of giving it to their rightful (and hungry) owners, she was handing it out to her mates in other units on the compound. Michelle lived on B Side of Remand, and although I was a lowly A-Side dweller she liked me and we got along quite well. Still, my heart was in my mouth as I approached her in the common area.
‘Hello, Michelle!’ I said. ‘Hey, the girls are saying they’re not getting their yoghurt and I can see that food is a pretty big thing around here so … what in the fuck is going on?’
‘None of your business,’ she snorted from the couch.
‘Well, it is my business because I live here now and I’m going to be here for a while – a bit longer than you.’
I might as well have poked a snake. Michelle was on her feet in a flash. Outraged that I had dared question her sentence, she stormed out onto the compound growling threats through gritted teeth.
The length of a woman’s sentence is a major factor in how much standing she has in the prison. The women doing twenty years for murder cast an enormous shadow over those who are in for relatively minor crimes – and on much shorter sentences. Michelle had told everyone she was serving four years for a violent assault; quite a significant stretch that afforded her a certain cachet among the other crims. But I had it on good authority from an officer that she was, in fact, due to be released in six months. What’s more, hers was what’s known as a ‘bullshit crime’ – some kind of minor fracas.
A few minutes later Michelle was back in the unit trailing a group of her tough, yoghurt-fed mates from the compound. Suddenly I was extremely worried about Michelle’s propensity for violence, no matter how ‘bullshit’ it might have been. ‘She’s talking shit about my sentence and trying to undermine my fucking rights and disrespecting me,’ she said, jabbing a finger at me.
‘No, I’m just trying to stop you from fucking everyone over,’ I replied as calmly as I could. I was terrified, but, as ever, I felt I had already lost everything that was dear to me. Michelle and her cronies couldn’t make my life any worse than it already was. I was damned if I was going to let her bully the food right out of people’s mouths, so I let rip with mine. I stepped up close and whispered in her ear, ‘You’re not doing four years. You and I both know you’ll be able to buy all the yoghurt you want when you get out in six months. But right now, everyone else in here – who isn’t going home – needs their fucking food, OK?’
There was a long silence as Michelle assessed her options. Finally she stepped back and defaulted to the threat of violence. ‘Do you wanna take it outside, Tucker?’ she asked, oozing menace. It was the first time I felt genuinely afraid of being bashed by another woman.
‘No thanks, I’d rather stand here and talk to you about when it is that you’re going home.’
‘Four years!’ she bellowed.
‘Are you sure about that?’ By then about twenty-five women had gathered to watch the stand-off. ‘Do you want to consider that again, Michelle, because what it’s going to do is show everyone here that you’re a liar and a coward.’ Michelle’s mates started to lose interest and peel away. Soon Michelle’s tough-girl veneer did too. Now with no one to back her up she confessed that some of the old-timers on the compound had forced her to get the yoghurt for them.
‘So you were being bullied?’ I asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Feels shit, doesn’t it?’
She didn’t answer.
‘OK, why don’t we just all get our yoghurt and forget this ever happened,’ I said. Unsurprisingly the old-timers found out Michelle had given them up about the yoghurt racket and bullied her some more. At least she only had to cop it for another six months. The episode was a dismal reminder of the culture of stand-over. Everywhere I looked I saw bullying. Not only did I detest it, I struggled to understand it. Virtually every single one of these women had been victims of violence, bullying and abuse at the hands of some male cretin or other. For them to then turn around and start doing the same thing to another woman – whose suffering was no different from theirs – was just plain stupid and I told them so. Once, I became so outraged I even broke the almighty code: ‘Speak no evil’ …
Feuds were commonplace among inmates, and although violence would occasionally break out, psychological attacks could take an even greater toll – as Miss Crime Family had found out in the Moorabbin drunk tank. Sometimes, however, women chose to settle scores in the most heinous and disgusting ways imaginable. One day I was told that a girl had tried to get back at someone by wiping her menstrual blood on the rival’s muffin. I almost retched at the thought of it and marched into A5 to explain to the entire unit what had happened. I then went to the unit supervisor and told him that all the girls were aware. I knew it was just a matter of time before they acted under ‘duty of care’. I also told Bloody Mary what to expect for her revolting act.
‘How do we know this filthy little creature hasn’t got HIV?’ I complained to the supervisor. During lunch muster, A5 was locked down and Bloody Mary was escorted to Protection. So there – evil spoken. It was the only time I ever set someone up to an officer – the No. 1 big no-no of the prison code. But I paid no price for it whatsoever. The way I saw it, if your code was about protecting women who would do such a thing to another inmate then it was a fairly crap arrangement. No one really argued the point.
It was one thing to confront bullying head on, but to truly deal with it I felt I had to try to change the culture. Over the course of a few weeks I mapped out a draft for my own DPFC Orientation Program to be run in the A5 Remand/Reception Unit. I put a submission to Brendan Money and prison management, outlining the pros and cons of the program versus the status quo of the existing prisoner code. One potential obstacle was the fact I didn’t want officers present during the sessions because it would defeat the purpose of allowing the women to speak freely. I could have used such an opportunity to convince women to riot or train them to spit at the officers, but management knew I wouldn’t. They trusted me and I was given the go-ahead.
At regular Sunday night sessions I’d address all the new arrivals about what it was like to live in DPFC and what the accepted practices among the inmates were. I usually began by advising them not to give the officers any grief. ‘The smart way is to get officers onside and treat them with respect,’ I’d say. ‘Then you can expect to be cut some slack with most things. Do your time in prison smart. It’s not smart to do your sentence in the slot.’
I’d go to great lengths to drill it into them that bullying and intimidation of any kind would not be tolerated by the inmates or the officers. ‘The officers may slot you, but the women will deal with you on another level,’ I warned. I educated them to respect each other’s differences and each other’s traumas. ‘Do your own sentence. Don’t judge the women in Protection, because you know nothing about them or their personal stories. It’s not acceptable to call them dogs.’ I challenged every bit of ‘old school’ culture, but did it in a respectful, constructive way. And by educating new arrivals they, in turn, carried the new culture out onto the compound. Slowly but surely it started to have an effect. Tempers still flared and women still tried to put it over others but, by and large, the prevailing attitude became more respectful and women felt a little safer inside the prison. The tragedy was there was nothing I could do to help the women once they left.
Debbie Singh was a lovely woman who hailed from Swan Hill near my old hometown of Robinvale. Debbie was in on drugs charges and for six months I listened to her harrowing tales of life with a violent and abusive partner. She was dreading going back to him, but she was an addict and had no one else to ‘look after’ her so she gravitated to him like a moon to a black hole. When the day came for her to leave DPFC I walked with her to the gates and waved her goodbye. ‘Seeya, Deb. You’re gonna be OK. You’ll be fine. Take care of yourself and write to me. B-y-y-y-e-e-e!’
Nine days later she was dead. The Salvation Army came to see me and told me Debbie had left a note saying, ‘Tell Kerry that it wasn’t going to happen for me.’ Deb had overdosed and her death was treated as a suicide, but her body had also been covered in bruises. I was in shock. The wonderful, broken, sweet and fragile girl I’d come to love in just seven months behind bars together, was suddenly lost to the world forever. I ran around the compound grabbing hold of people and shaking them: ‘Oh my God, Debbie’s dead! She’s dead! Do you hear me?’ But everyone seemed to be used to it, whereas Debbie was the first friend I lost. After a while Deb became Shari, who became Betty, who became Jenny, who turned into a long roll call of dead women.
Deep down, though, I knew Deb had stood a fair chance of taking her own life on the outside. We had talked a lot about her problems. In less than a year I had become something of a seer among the inmates at DPFC; a kind of ‘woman whisperer’ who could predict behaviour and actions long before events caught up with my hunches. I could tell who would get into trouble within the first few days or weeks of their arrival, and I could tell who wouldn’t. I’d watch women from the moment they walked into Reception and make careful mental notes about their body language and their spoken words – right down to their tone, pitch and flow. I’d listen to what they told me first and what they chose to tell me last. I knew if they had serious issues, health problems, mood imbalances, depression or PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
I’d sit with women and stare into their eyes to see if they connected with mine. I always tried to convey a sense of safety with my gaze; to let her know I was genuine and open and that I took her care seriously. I could sense a lot by looking women in the eyes. They were indeed windows to their souls and I could tell whether her soul was ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or whether it was just vacant for the moment. At all times I focused on being unthreatening. My voice was always warm, soft and smooth and I made my hand gestures as graceful as I could. I was slow, deliberate, reassuring, comforting, quiet and steady. Whenever I touched them I was gentle but not lingering; reassuring but not overly familiar. I read and respected women’s individual body language and found it often spoke louder than any words.
If a woman told me she wanted to kill herself, I had enough knowledge, history and insight to know if she meant business or was merely seeking attention. It was crucial because what I did next would have a direct impact on her life at that moment. If I knew it was a genuine threat she would end up ‘wet-celled’ with a Teflon blanket. In that case, I’d make sure it was me who explained what was about to happen to her and not an officer. She would trust me if I said they weren’t going to hurt her but I’d still point out that the experience wasn’t going to be nice.
If a woman made an empty suicide threat and she was wet-celled regardless, then the experience would be soul destroying and she’d never trust me again. It was therefore better that I help her work through whatever problem she was having rather than involve the officers. These were life and death decisions, but I felt comfortable making them because I knew every single woman, their personalities and their past behaviours. It became obvious why they wanted to keep me in Remand.