Prison is the END of Inequality's Road

By Stacey Shortall

In New Zealand today, women make up only 6.8% of the prison population. On paper, that looks small. But look closer, and you will see something much larger: a brutal snapshot of inequality in this country.

Two out of three imprisoned women are mothers. On average, they leave behind nearly three children each when they go to prison. Those children aren’t guilty of anything - yet they pay a heavy price. They grow up without daily contact with their mother, sometimes without any contact at all, because prisons are too far away and visits are too costly.

For these women, punishment doesn’t stop at a cell door. It reaches into their families, rippling through their children and communities.

Life Before Prison

 

Around 75% of women in prison have been victims of family violence. More than half have been sexually assaulted. At least 60% have literacy and numeracy skills below NCEA Level 1. The majority live with untreated trauma, addiction, or mental health conditions.

Prison, in other words, is not the start of their story. It is where years of inequality finally end up.

Nowhere is this clearer than for Māori women. Māori are 17% of our population, but 63% of women in prison. That statistic should stop us in our tracks. It represents not a wave of criminality, but generations of inequity and systemic bias in education, health, housing and wealth.

This is not about justice being served behind prison walls. It is about injustices pushing Māori women towards those walls in the first place.

Fewer Prisons, Fewer Options

 

Prison for women also is not only about deprivation of liberty. It is about deprivation of connection.

There are only three women’s prisons in New Zealand. That means many women are held far from home, cutting them off from children and whānau. Rehabilitation and education programmes can be patchy. And a significant portion of women are held on remand, not yet convicted or sentenced but suffering the same separations and disruptions as those already sentenced.

The Cycle Continues

 

Around a third of women in prison have been there at least once before. Why? Because when they leave, they walk straight back into the same conditions: poverty, housing insecurity, violence, unemployment, and stigma. We say prison is about rehabilitation, yet we release women into the very inequalities that sent them there in the first place.

This is not justice. It is recycling trauma.

Why This Matters to All of Us

 

Some will ask: why should we care? The answer is simple. Every child of an imprisoned mother is more likely to struggle at school, to suffer poor mental health, and to end up in the justice system themselves. Every woman who leaves prison unsupported is more likely to reoffend, adding cost to taxpayers and risk to communities.

Others will ask: why should we help these prisoners when other women who have it equally rough do not commit crime? The answer is equally simple. They may have had one teacher believe in them, one relative step in, one job offer there or one friend help them handle a critical moment differently. The inequalities faced by many of the women in our prisons are not theirs alone. But the circumstances in which they faced those inequalities may have been very lonely.

What Should Change

• Connection: Ensure mothers can keep in touch with their children - better phone access, affordable visits, more family-friendly policies.

• Trauma-informed support: Expand health, addiction, and rehabilitation services designed for women.

• Reintegration: Safe housing, real job opportunities, and community support must be non-negotiable after release.

• Alternatives to prison: For mothers, for women on remand, for low-level offences, we must find other ways.

The Test of Our Society

 

The measure of our justice system is not just how it punishes, but how it restores. Right now, when it comes to women in prison, we are failing.

Behind the walls are not just “prisoners”. There are mothers, daughters, sisters, friends and neighbours. They carry the weight of inequality, but we can also let them carry hope. If we choose to address the root causes of their imprisonment, then we don’t just change their futures. We change the futures of their children and, in doing so, we change the future of New Zealand.