Rhonda Hāpi-Smith: Surviving 20 years as a female prison officer

Rhonda Hāpi-Smith describes her career as a female prison officer in New Zealand as "wonderful, devastating, fantastic and heartbreaking" - and those contradictions tell the whole story. For 20 years, she walked among dangerous criminals at Rimutaka and Hawkes Bay men's prisons, loving the brotherhood, the resilience she witnessed, and the humour that got her through each day. But the career she loved also slowly broke her down - sometimes compromising her principles, destroying relationships, and driving her to alcohol.When Rhonda discovered an inmate's suicide, everything changed. In this raw conversation about her book "Inside the Wire", she reveals the personal cost of corrections work - the PTSD, the broken marriages, the numbness that kept her functional but disconnected from herself. We'd love to hear from you. Send us a text or a voicemail by clicking here. If you need support, here are helpful links, phone numbers and resources: https://ember.org.nz/resources/in-a-crisis/