Annah Stretton says build Waikeria prison extension
30 April 2018

Annah Stretton of Reclaim Another Woman (RAW) has called for a reframing of how we should look at prisons.

“Given that RAW has now worked with a diversity of offending women for the last 4 years there are voices that need to be heard and these are words that come from the women who have been or are currently in prison themselves,” Ms Stretton said.

“All of them say that prison was the one thing that called a halt (interrupted) the offending that would not have happened with a community sentence.

“Prisons aren’t a university of crime as Professor Ian Lambie of Auckland University’s psychology department calls them. They should be seen as an opportunity to offer change and learning both academic and life-skills to a demographic that has suffered from intergenerational disadvantage, that the system has failed repeatedly.”

Ms Stretton said incarceration in conjunction with meaningful learning programmes offered an opportunity to get this change.

“We have women and men doing time. They arrive with an initial expectation of being in a disciplined and non-negotiable space – the best environment to enable learning, so this needs to be a driven with a very strategic focus on achieving real change.

“As a country we have no issue with the building of tertiary learning institutes to pave the way for the advantaged. Prisons could be viewed as the universities for our disadvantaged – we need periods of incarceration to offer change, safety and hope.

“All stakeholders would formulate a 'change curriculum' to be part of an enabling sentence plan.”

Ms Stretton said listening to the women who have been or who are currently incarcerated seems far more sensible if we truly want to make a change for the person, the families and for society.

“It’s about time real world solutions were implemented and it’s about time that prisons were seen as a place of change, learning and success, not just a place of punishment – that’s why I established RAW, because I believe in these women - who have chosen a pathway of real change - and it’s our responsibility to help them achieve their dreams and aspirations.”

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