Napier study into female prisoners

Doug Laing | Wednesday, November 23, 2011 10:21

Hannah Bentley

At 26 and having been at Victoria University for most of the last eight years, Hannah Bentley may have just found the key to the door after being named the Napier Pilot City's Trust's first Robson Collection Student in Residence.

The psychology graduate, who grew up mainly in Upper Hutt and who is now hitting her straps in criminology, will conduct a study on the reintegration of women into the Napier community on release from prison.

But she promises it won't be the type of study report that spends its days gathering dust on a shelf. Not only is she confident the trust will do something with the findings, but she also has a personal "ambition" to develop a residential facility for such women and children in need. She also wants to see projects established in schools to deal with issues leading to female offending, or stemming from women's imprisonment.

"To understand female experiences of release from prison, it is essential to identify the 'typical' offender profile of the female prison population, what has characterised their lives prior to imprisonment and how they experience incarceration."

She is also doing a Masters thesis on a similar topic which is more general to New Zealand, where, she says Census figures show female offenders tend to be young and also have children in their care.

Miss Bentley hopes a unique Napier study will influence future strategies in reducing female offending and the rates of female imprisonment.

The study begins when she speaks at the trust's Robson Collection lecture series next week, and over the next few months she wants to gather as many views as possible from women who have been to prison.

While there was a lot of literature internationally on women in prison, there was little on how women reintegrated in the community, she said.

"In New Zealand, the female prison population has largely been ignored, sidelined and/or seen as secondary to the male prison population due to its small size," she said.

Miss Bentley linked with the Pilot City Trust earlier this year, when she learned of a programme it proposed for mentoring women being released from jail.

She came to Napier with the manager of Arohata, the Wellington prison which houses most female inmates from Hawke's Bay, and attended a forum.

"It was apparent that we share common goals, values and beliefs which seek to create change, provide support and produce better outcomes," Miss Bentley said.