From inside the walls of Sydney's Silverwater Corrections Centre, accounts of prison's vicious revolving door* are all too familiar. This inmate, identifying herself only as Susan, says she has been caught in the cycle for much of her adult life.
"(How long have you spent in jail since 2000?) I have been here every year for long periods - short periods of time mostly - for the last sixteen years. (And for what sort of things?) Drink-driving charges, larceny, break and enter. mostly these type of charges."
SBS's Insight program has spoken with a range of women in the Silverwater prison in Sydney.
It holds the most female inmates in New South Wales, and one hears conversations like this ...
"Am I going to see you back as a cat 4? I hope you never see me again....How much money do you reckon I would have if I had ten cents every time I heard I am never coming back....I wouldn't put money on it. I can't promise you."
More than 40 per cent of women prisoners return to prison.
Professor Peter Norden is a former prison chaplain who now works in criminology at RMIT University in Melbourne.
He says jails are ill-equipped to rehabilitate inmates and to prevent recidivism.
"Prison can't deal with the issues that women face in the community - housing, lack of employment, trauma, mental illness, addiction. These problems have got to be dealt with through community corrections, not prison."
Once released, some, like a 28-year-old woman named Shannon, say they simply find life on the outside too difficult.
"And why did you breach parole? Oh I didn't really have to breach it, I could have gone to rehab but I didn't want to...So you deliberately breached parole to get back into jail? Yes."
That is a growing problem in an overcrowded jail system.
The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show more than 38,000 Australians are in full-time custody.
While women remain a small proportion of the prison population, their numbers in recent years have actually increased more dramatically than their male counterparts.
University of Melbourne criminologist Diana Johns warns jailing more women has particuarly damaging effects on families.
"Imprisoning people actually adds to the cycle of dysfunction. You are removing them from their children. you are just whittling away their resources and their capacity to return to these relationships in a way that's functional and not involved in crime."
But a prisoner named Meaghan is brutally honest about the offences that led to her jailing.
"A month after the first incident I beat a girl with a baseball bat....why did you do that?....She smacked my son in the face. (How badly was she hurt?)I was told she had to have a knee reconstruction. (And how did you feel about that?) I didn't feel anything because I despise her."
