It's almost midday inside Australia's toughest women's prison and an inmate is writhing on the floor and battering the wall of her holding cell.
She's a repeat offender - it's not long since she was given parole - and now she's been delivered back in a white prison truck.
She bellows her distress as she hits the cell's transparent perspex walls with a walking stick. The prison officer in charge, Lisa, calmly asks for the stick to be retrieved.
Like every female in the state who is denied bail, handcuffed and placed into custody, the woman is being processed as an inmate at the maximum security Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre.
The other fresh arrivals in the row of see-through cells in the induction unit are quiet and compliant, still dressed in their civvies. One woman is slumped with a distant stare as she waits in limbo between the end of freedom and prison life.
The prison, which holds about 220 female inmates, is one of four in the vast Silverwater jail complex that is set on 26 hectares between the Parramatta River and the Holker Street Mobil terminals.
When Daily Mail Australia was granted access to the prison a few weeks before Christmas, most of the inmates were resigned to being locked up for the duration of their sentences, a couple were hopeful of release, while one was approaching her eighth stint behind bars.
Lisa said the jail processed up to seven fresh custodies a day, plus another three women transferred from other prisons or police cells.
The induction centre operates from 6pm to 10pm seven days a week, with women arriving in a prison truck in various states.
'If it's a vulnerable charge - like an offence against a child, we separate them. If they have said they will self-harm, there is a screening process for physical as well mental,' Lisa said.
'There's a questionnaire asking if they are going to hurt themselves, or anything they wish to tell us.
'A lot of the girls are regulars, others have never been here before.'
Lisa has a warrant for each offender coming off the truck, along with their criminal charges, next court appearance and MIN (Master Index) number which is theirs for life. They are individually identified with mug shots and birth dates.
The women must hand over their phones, key cards, licences and valuables which are stored in bags tagged with their names and MIN numbers until their release.
They see a welfare officer to organise anything needed for children left at home and a SAPO (Service and Programs Officer) to obtain items including a birth certificate for long-term inmates.
In the induction unit's hallway near the row of holding cells, a stack of prison issue belongings waits for the moment each new inmate hands over their clothing and all jewellery bar wedding rings and crosses or other symbols of faith before the compulsory strip search or body scan.
One inmate told Daily Mail Australia she was strip-searched three times in one day during processing: 'It was horrible, I was treated like crap' - before being swallowed into the jail and the anonymity of prison greens.
Another inmate became hysterical about her experience in a body scan - one of the machines gradually overtaking strip searches. They are 'less invasive' but also detect drugs concealed internally.
The woman was confined to a 'dry cell' - which has no toilet or running water - to secrete internal contraband after the body scan indicated drugs - although the inmate claims it was an intrauterine contraceptive device.
The jail's governor, Simon Raper, quietly confirms the woman scanned was concealing drugs.
An officer of 35 years spent in 14 special operations units and different correctional centres, Mr Raper has worked as security manager or general manager from Sydney's notorious Long Bay jail to regional NSW and back again.
One of his ongoing challenges is to prevent drugs coming in via internal concealment, visitors, or tossed over the razor wire along Silverwater's high mesh fences.
Mr Raper later reveals out in the jail yard that he is working with other prison authorities to combat fence drops with new hi-tech radar equipment.
After visits were cancelled to NSW correctional centres in March 2020 due to Covid, all jails recorded an increase in people using mail, drones and tennis balls to attempt smuggle drugs inside.
Silverwater Women's is still known among prisoners as Mulawa, its old name from last century when it housed some of Australia's most notorious female criminals including 'Angel of Death' Julie Cashman, cannibal killer Catherine Knight, Australia's worst female serial killer Kathleen Folbigg, and 'Face of Evil' killer, Kim Snibson.
Former premier Neville Wran's daughter Harriet Wran was incarcerated here and so was Lindy Chamberlain, briefly, before going to Darwin's Berrimah jail and eventually being exonerated over daughter Azaria's death.
Mulawa's alumni also includes Australia's most dangerous women - convicted murderer Rebecca Butterfield, Debbie Marie Adams who murdered a teacher with a cooking knife, and baby killers Keli Lane, Rachel Pfitzner and Kristy Abrahams.
These criminals are either dead, out or in different prisons, although Silverwater's current inmates will claim there are still frightening and violent women who stand over and intimidate others in the yard.
The veteran jail boss of 35 years is not a regular viewer of TV shows like 'Wentworth' or 'Orange Is The New Black' which portray women's prisons as hotbeds of sex and drama, and says they are a little 'out of reality'.
'The bottom line is they are violent places, there is self harm,' Mr Raper said.
'Sex? It happens but it's not as prevalent as everyone expects.'
He said female inmates are 'more needy' than male prisoners, and Silverwater Women's status means they are less settled.
The prison records four to five incidents a day ranging from 'drugs, officer assault, and abusing staff, the usual gamut of behaviour in jail'.
The jail is now principally a remand and reception centre, like the massive Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre up the road which holds about 1,200 male inmates, meaning prisoners not in the routine of serving time are more volatile.
Prison officer Steph said Dillwynia prison, Australia's largest women's jail at Windsor, is 'a lot more settled' with female prisoners doing longer sentences for murder, violence and serious drug offences.
'Silverwater Women's has such a high turnover, some first-time custodies, that their needs are heightened,' she said.
Mr Raper said that women entering the prison can be withdrawing from drugs and alcohol and have mental health issues, while most are victims of domestic violence or sexual assault.
In one of Silverwater Women's twelve accommodation units called Teresa Wing, it's lunchtime and the women are eating hot meals in aluminium trays prepared by Corrective Services Industries and reheated by inmates in a kitchen.
On the dinner menu is lamb ratatouille, although other inmates in the day room are eating vegemite and cheese rolls. Some prefer to eat hot meals at lunchtime rather than cold dishes in their cells, where they are locked in at 2.30pm.
One inmate said the nutritionally balanced meals, packaged and labelled with every ingredient, 'taste like s**t'.
The woman with greying hair has been in various NSW prisons 16 times for offences relating to her heroin addiction, and says most of her fellow inmates have been charged with offences relating to drugs.
'Ninety per cent of us are drug takers,' she said.
In Teresa Wing, two young prisoners and cellmates C 27, and D 23, are keen to show off their tiny and tidy cell where they spend 17 hours in each other's company every night.
The cell has two bunk beds, a toilet and a small separate shower unit with a curtain rod which by day serves as a hanger for clothes.
A set of shelves holds their prison greens which the two women share because they are the same size.
On the narrow table is a tablet for calls to pre-approved contacts, but not connected to the internet, and hanging behind it are personal items which C says they 'keep nice and pretty, all really neat, very homely and not depressing'.
They are relieved to have become best friends and 'cellies' together after the 'daunting' process of their initial incarceration among strangers, followed by a gradual integration into prison life.
'It's a small world when you do a crime,' C said, 'you know someone who knows someone who knows the (female inmate) and you help out girls, help someone out.
'You might give them shampoo or conditioner, and then you might come back in with nothing and you need help.'
She said of her relationship with the female prison officer on her wing: 'If you are of good behaviour and respectful to the officer it's fine, if you are naughty forget it'.
Being 'naughty' includes violence, threats and concealing contraband such as mobile phones or drugs.
Raper explains he combats this with a mandatory turnover of six cells every day in each wing such as Teresa, as well as 'targeted searches of certain inmates' according to prison intelligence.
Over the the hand-carved sandstone gates at the maximum security men's prisons at Bathurst and Goulburn is a sculptured lion's head holding a key, a Victorian era symbol to impress wrongdoers with the immense power of the law.
Legend is that when the key falls from the lion's mouth, all prisoners all allowed to go free.
Above the security scanners at the entrance of Silverwater Women's, a fluffy toy lion's head with a key in its mouth looks like a friendly welcome.
But a series of heavy security lock doors - the next one doesn't open until the previous one closes - into the complex enhances the feeling of leaving the world behind.
The prison has made efforts to defuse tensions among inmates which increased under Covid lockdowns due to boredom, feelings of futility and frustration.
Sunil Sareen, the manager in charge of rostering and ensuring inmates have a purposeful day, said the 'horrendous' Covid lockdowns had eased and 800 new prison officers had been recruited.
Before 7.30am: Women are still in their cells, eating breakfast of bread and condiments and tea or coffee with an extra milk ration for females.
7.30: Let out of cells and can attend education activities, programs, receive professional legal visits, family visits, make court appearances via AVL and visit the medical clinic or the prison chapel.
11am-12pm: Lunch in the wing with fellow inmates. Women inmates can opt to have their 'hot' lunch at this time, heated served in a aluminium tray.
2.30PM: Back in cells, taking dinner or sandwich or salad meal for the 17 hours locked in with a cellmate.
Inside one of two visitor rooms, four inmates stand before the mural they painted of banana palms, flowers and a peacock.
The women admire their artwork, and then respond to a question of what it was like to first come into jail, agreeing to be identified only as K1, K2, C and J.
They are all on remand, three on drug charges, K1 for something she doesn't discuss.
J is the woman who was strip-searched twice at a different prison and then once at Silverwater.
'It was scary,' she said.
'Even if they were nice it's like they have power over your body.
'The holding cells at the bottom of the court room are concrete slabs. It was an absolute shock. There were a lot of tears.
'It's intense. It's scary in the yard.'
K1 said once she had become an inmate she had to work out how 'to shut out the ones you don't get along with' and befriending 'the ones you can have rapport'.
The inmates, who all live on the same wing, described the 'hotbed of drama' out in the prison yards.
'There's intimidation, (women) trying to stand over you for what they think they can get from you. There are people who act like queen bee'.
The key was keeping busy with a prison job for longer-term inmates such as the Qantas headset workshop where they earn $15 a day, plus bonuses making up to $35 or $40.
The workshops at Silverwater and at Dillwynia unravel, clean and repack first class and economy headsets.
Senior Overseer Baldev Dhillon said inmates were relieved to back in business after the workshop was 'dead' during Covid.
The women said when they were locked up mid-afternoon for the 'very long night', they passed the time with books from the library which stocks mystery, romance and even murder and crime novels. They also watch TV, and use the tablet for 10 minute calls to six private numbers and four legal contacts.
The high number of inmates with children inspired one of the prison's programs MAAD, or Mothering At A Distance, to help those struggling with the enormity of being an mum behind bars.
'You don't realise what you have done, bad things, until you are in here,' one of six women in the MAAD class said.
All from the same prison wing, one of the women said having their children's names written on the whiteboard 'helps us remember we are mothers... when you are trying not to die as a mother'.
'It brings us closer when that feeling inside that needs to be let loose, the hurt and stress... it helps us remember we do have people who love us out there, little people.'
'Some of us were full-time mothers,' said one of the inmates who had been in prison for seven years, 'we have lost our children, the trauma when you lose your children, you kind of lose everything.'
Out in the prison yard, inmates are playing volleyball.
A young woman complains about being confined to her cell after failing a prison drug test while her 42-year-old friend and recidivist drug offender has a more relaxed attitude to confinement.
'Of course tensions boil over and then the stress only makes it worse, but you learn to adapt,' she said.
'You can't rely on other people to address your issues with drugs and alcohol, or the reason you're always going to jail.
'Most of the time we try and make it work, us girls.'
Beyond the volleyball court, a semi-circle of exercise machines are mounted on the grass below the high fence topped with rolls of razor wire glinting in the sun.
Mr Raper said Buprenorphine - or 'Bupe' in jail parlance - is 'very much so' the biggest drug problem. But since smoking was banned in prisons, tobacco gets thrown over the fence, along with other contraband including mobile phones or SIM cards.
The prison value of a strip or tablet of 'Bupe' can reportedly run as high as $1,000.
In 2020, while Mr Raper was governor of Shortland Correctional Centre at Cessnock, staff foiled a brazen plan for an aerial drone drop of $100,00 worth of Bupe into the prison.
Officers intercepted a tennis ball of Bupe outside the centre on a Saturday, and three days later found a drone with a line of string attached to a package inside a vehicle.
The package allegedly contained 108 buprenorphine strips and 42 tablets. A woman and three men were charged over the incident.
Raper hopes more drugs will be intercepted by an advanced AI-enabled radar system called Osprey which detects small objects propelled over fences.
'Officers work collectively to prevent contraband entering correctional centres from listening to phone calls, reading mail, performing targeted and random search operations, visitor searches and using security technology,' he said.
'Every centre I’ve worked in has had success using the examples mentioned.'
Out in an old area of the jail, a prison officer is practising a drill with his duress alarm, which officers collect each morning inside the front of the prison, and which have a unique call sign which will indicate which man or woman is down in the case of an emergency.
Each jail has an IAT (Immediate Action Team) to respond to riots, assaults, or injury of any officer inside the prison.
No women's prison has had a riot, but an IAT team armed with gas masks, shields, truncheons and tear gas is prepared to deploy if one does occur.
A Corrective Services spokeswoman said that 'large-scale incidents are very rare, including at women's prisons.
'Chemical munitions are used as a management tool for men and women in custody when all other options have been exhausted.'
Mr Raper said: 'I have been involved in a number of incidents throughout my career. These incidents can be traumatic for both staff and inmates, but CSNSW have a great support system after these types of incidents.'
