As a prison officer from a whanau of prison officers, and first female to join the Riot Squad, Rhonda Hāpi-Smith worked alongside thieves, addicts, gangsters, murderers and sex offenders for nearly 20 years. But none of that made her question how long she could stay in the career as much as the realities of shift work, as she writes in this exclusive extract from her new memoir, Inside the Wire.
We usually worked on rotating shifts for between seven and 10 days straight. The shortest stint was five days, but that involved working such long hours that home was just a place you visited. I began to get excited each time my days off approached, and I would make plans to do all sorts of things. I could begin to feel my personality start to emerge again — but only a little bit.
Quite often when I saw staff coming and going between their respective areas, I could tell how far through their stint they were just by the way they held themselves. At the beginning of a stint, they’d come in slowly and didn’t have a lot to say. Their heads were down and their bums were up, and they’d just come and go. But as they got nearer to their days off, they started walking with a bit of a strut. Their heads were up, they were happy to chat and they just basked the day away. When it came to their last day on shift, they were bouncing. No one was going to take their sunshine — not today, mate, not today, they were just too happy. They’d get to the end of their shift and they’d be skipping on their way out. Bye, peasants, bye!
The first thing I’d do when I left work at the start of my days off was head to the shops to get some nice food because my cupboards at home looked like Mother Hubbard’s — empty AF — and I would not be cooking that night.
Usually, this would be in the middle of everyone else’s week, so all my mates had to get up early in the morning to go to work, which ruined any plans I might have had for going out.
I always had good intentions of doing things on my first day off, but I was dreaming. I would wake up at midday, be unable to get moving for at least two hours, then I’d sit there staring out the window for another two hours thinking, ‘What day is it today? Is it morning or evening?’
Before I knew it, it was dark outside, I was still wearing my PJs and I needed to cook tea. Well, that was my day over. Then I’d think, Oh, well, I still have tomorrow.
Then I might get a phone call from a mate at work, crying because someone wasn’t going to be at work the next day, and could I come in and work their shift.
‘Hell no, I don’t want to work!’ I’d reply.
Then I’d hear sniffling on the other end of the phone and the old guilt trip would continue: ‘You don’t care about us anymore …’ And that’s how I’d end up working my other day off. If I’d just worked seven days, I only got two days off, so then I’d be back to work, probably to do a 10-day stint.
Exhaustion is one of the main reasons why most prison officers — if they don’t get out in time — will either die on the job, or from something associated with it. My dear father did. He had the first of seven strokes at his retirement party, with six recurrent strokes over 24 hours, and he died the next day. He worked right up until he passed away. This became my biggest reason to not work my entire life in the prison. To be an officer inside a prison has a huge price on it, and you will pay it. No one will ever come out of there unscathed, and you will carry stuff with you for life. This was how I was feeling in the final few years of my career.
I’d been in the job for 18 years when I was sent to uplift a criminal who was well known to us and who caused merry hell on most of his visits. I usually got on with him, but he was famous for hitting our prison chaplain, who was the nicest, most generous man, and hitting a lot of other staff as well.
I got to his cell and went to unlock it and greet him, when he turned around, stood there and looked at me for a second. Before I could gather my wits, he said, ‘Faaark, is that you, Rhonda?’ ‘Yes, it’s me,’ I replied, thinking he was going to say something constructive. ‘Faaark, you’re looking old. You used to look cute before but not anymore.’
Hhhmmmm, why thank you, ugly criminal who can’t keep himself out of prison.
After that, I kept our conversation to a minimum because I didn’t think I could take any more of his chat.
For some reason, that comment hit me to the core of my being, making me take a step back and ask myself if I’d been there too long.
That was the first time I wondered whether my career was coming to an end. My ego was stung. I had received worse comments from prisoners on many occasions, but for some reason that one hit home. Where would my career go from there?
Extract with permission from Inside the Wire, True stories from a New Zealand Prison Officer, by Rhonda Hāpi-Smith (HarperCollins NZ).
SHARE ME