For Tanya and many detainees at the Alexander Maconochie Centre, the opening of a new bakery will not only equip them with industry specific skills, but also gives them something to do.
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"It eases the boredom," Tanya said. "Six hours a day being here is a lot better than being in the yard for six hours, trust me.
"There's a lot of boredom for us ladies in this jail, so it's good to have the bakery."
On Friday, minister for corrections Shane Rattenbury officially opened the bakery, which has been fully functional since last month.
He said employment in prison work industries has become recognised as a rehabilitation tool in many of Australia's corrections facilities.
"It's vital that we equip detainees with the skills they need to reintegrate back into the wider community," Mr Rattenbury said.
"Having these sort of facilities means detainees are getting skills, building self-confidence and filling hours in their day which is very important."
He said seven female detainees work six hours shift, five days a week and it's hoped in the coming year the bakery will provide up to 15 women with work.
"The intent here with the bakery in the first instances is to provide the output for the AMC," he said.
"We've got around 480 detainees and the aspiration is to provide all of our breads, pastries and desserts within the operations here from the bakery facility and that's certainly a big job in itself."
The bakery is led by head chef Darrell Morton who was a bakery teacher at the Canberra Institute of Technology.
"The work ethic is fantastic, in terms of their motivation they're extremely enthusiastic about the approach for what they need to produce everyday - we make everything from scratch, we don't buy anything in," Mr Morton said.
"They're going in the right direction in terms of what they're trying to achieve."
By the end of the year, the detainees will be able to pursue a Certificate II, retail bakery assistant qualification as part of the program.
"I've worked in a bakery, but that was a long, long time ago," Tanya said. "It's really good [to get the qualification], more skills."
The bakery will produce approximately 19,000 loaves of bread, 167,000 lunch rolls, 55,000 muffins and 8,000 biscuits annually.
Savings from the correction centre's accommodation expansion project was used to fund the new bakery, expanded laundry and multipurpose activities centre.
