James Phelps - Green Is the New Black: Inside Australias Hardest Womens Jails

Ivan Milat, the notorious backpacker serial killer, if not the most feared person in the prison system. Nor is Martin Bryant, the man responsible for claiming 35 lives in the Part Arthur massacre. No, the person in Australia controversially ruled too dangerous to be released, the one who needs chains, leather restraints and a full-time posse of guards, is Rebecca Butterfield: a self-mutilating murderer, infamous for slicing guards and stabbing another inmate 33 times.

But Butterfield is not alone. Theres cannibal killer Katherine Knight, jilted man-murderer Kathy Yeo, jailbreak artist Lucy Dudko, and a host of others who will greet you inside the gates of Australias hardest womens jails.

You will meet drug dealers, rapists and fallen celebrities. You will hear tales of forbidden love, drug parties gone wrong and guards who will trade 40-cent phone calls for sex. All with be revealed in Green is the New Black , a comprehensive account of womens prison life by award-winning author and journalist James Phelps.

Scream, Bitch

The teenager scratched, slapped and screamed.

Get the fuck off me, she shouted. Guard. Guard! Help. Someone. Please!

The man she was hitting tightened his grip, the tips of his fingers turning white as they pressed into her delicate throat.

And then he laughed.

Scream, bitch, he said, the smell of his breath as foul as his face. Scream as much as you like. They can hear you everyone can. But guess what? They dont care. They brought you to me, didnt they?

His tongue slid from his mouth, the pink flesh curling before slithering across his lips. In fact, he continued, a fresh slick of saliva cooling his cracked grin, they are going to have a turn too.

He sucked on his tongue, returning it to the dark hole from which it came. He stood and stared. All still.

And then he struck.

His heavily tattooed hand gripped the back of her head, his fingers, etched with jailhouse ink, taking a fistful of blonde. Then he swung, sending her head smashing into the cement wall.

The young woman fell to the floor, slumping and sobering up instantly on the cold, hard tiles.

She was down certainly dazed and dented but not out.

Oh, how she wished the blow had knocked her out cold.

She looked up and there he was. The well-known Sydney criminal smiled as he pulled down his pants

Earlier

Still in a drug haze, the dishevelled girl smiled as the magistrate sentenced her to jail. Departing, she flicked her sun-bleached hair from her face. Young, pretty and unmarked, she looked like a schoolgirl. Everything was normal, except for her eyes. They were vacant. A lake of placid blue, oblivious to fear or consequence.

Oh if only she knew what was to come.

I had no idea what I was in for, the girl, now a grandmother who has spent more than 20 years of her life in New South Wales jails, recalled. I dont think I even cared that Id been sent to jail. It didnt mean a thing. I wasnt scared. Nothing like that.

But soon she was

I thought I was on my way to a farm, she said. Or to something like a very strict school. A home for bad girls.

Only she wasnt.

Out, said the prison escort, his baton poking her ribs. This is us. Were here Grafton Jail.

Grafton? What the fuck? GRAFTON?

She looked up, the methamphetamine that put her in this mess still swimming in her veins.

Nah, not me, she said, rubbing her eyes. This is Grafton. This is a mens jail. She pointed down at her ample breasts. Tits. See? I am not a man. I think we should be heading down the freeway to Sydney now.

The prison escort deadpanned. No, love. This is you. Off you get.

The womans voice strained as she remembered, now 30 years on, the horror of arriving at the notorious jail. She still has nightmares about the towering sandstone walls of Grafton Correctional Centre that welcomed her to one of Australias most notorious prisons.

I thought I was on my way to a womens jail in Sydney, she said. But I came from up on the North Coast of New South Wales, and there were no womens jails up that way. They would take women like me to Grafton on remand while they worked out where to send us.

Grafton? Of all the jails in Australia. It had to be Grafton.

I knew about the place, she said. Everyone did. Thats where they sent the tracs. The worst of the worst.

Yep. The most troublesome prisoners in New South Wales were sent to Grafton Jail. Men they called the intractables. Some of the most violent men in Australian history had called this house of horrors home killers like Neddy Smith, John Stuart and Archie McCafferty, to name but a few.

Justice John Nagle exposed Graftons long history of abuse in the Nagle Royal Commission, held from 1976 to 1978, stating:

It is the view of the Commission that every prison officer who served at Grafton during the time the jail was used for intractables must have known of its brutal regime. The majority of them, if not all, would have taken part in the illegal assaults on prisoners.

Grafton was the home of the reception biff a vicious beating given to new inmates as a painful prison welcoming.

In some instances the beatings even began before the security belt and handcuffs were removed, continued Nagle. The beatings were usually administered by three or four officers wielding rubber batons. The prisoner was taken into a yard, ordered to strip, searched and then the biff would begin.

But surely this girl all skin and bone, just a sun-tanned teenager from the Surf Coast had nothing to fear?

I wasnt so sure, she said. But yeah. I wasnt expecting to cop a beating. Nothing like that.

And she wasnt belted. There was no reception biff. What happened to her was far worse

The girl was processed. She was stripped and searched.

It was terrifying, she said, but all pretty standard practice, now that I can look back with way too much experience.

She was taken to her cell, all intimidating stone blocks with a heavy steel door. She slumped down on her new bed a rock-hard piece of foam with an equally uncomfortable pillow that felt like it had been filled with sand instead of feathers.

The drugs were fading fast, the lingering high becoming a creeping sick. The comedown. She began to shake as she attempted to find sleep.

Coming in! announced a guard after banging on the door.

He waited, giving the girl time to dress if she happened to be naked, before swinging the steel door open.

She rubbed her eyes, the blue now swallowed by a sea of rising red.

What? she said. What do you want?

The officer stood by the door. Off to see the nurse. Time to get you checked out.

She shuffled from her bed and joined the guard in the hall.

The nurse was there waiting, she recalled. He was a male nurse, and I thought I could trust him. Id just been sentenced and had gone through reception. I thought it all must have been part of the program.

It wasnt.

The trio travelled to the clinic, everything silent except for the sound of their feet as they shuffled across the ancient Grafton sandstone.

They stopped in front of a double door; steel but for a perspex viewing window. The guard pulled his keys from his belt and snapped the lock.