For prison guard, success is when inmates don't come back

If there is one misconception correctional services officer Jenny West wishes she could change, it's that the job requires little more than securing detainees.

"Corrections officers often get a bad rap in movies. Prison is not depicted as a nice place to be," she said.

"I really want the public to know there is a team of people out there working with these people to make sure when they do go back into the community, the community is safe."

Ms West has worked in corrective services for 13 years, the last four as area manager at the Alexander Maconochie Centre.

It's a complex role that requires overseeing every person in the jail.

Far from the hard, burly guard traditionally depicted in popular culture, Ms West is regularly presumed to work only with female detainees.

"A lot of people presume I work in a women's prison," she said.

"There's nothing women can't do that men do in that job."

It's a job that requires teamwork and a strong line of communication, particularly in the face of day-to-day risks.

"Every time somebody comes in, somebody new - at the moment it's three to four people a day coming into custody - we're looking at, 'are you going to hurt somebody, are you going to hurt yourself, where are we going to place you to make sure that you don't'," she said.

"There's a lot of social factors within a jail, what the detainees would label as jail politics; they have their own set of inner rules that we have to manage as well."

But the centre isn't a place where employees tread with fear.

"Prison is not something to be afraid of," Ms West said.

"To me a prison is a place where people go obviously because they've been sentenced, but it's a place of learning, it's a place to get healthy, it's a place to improve your employment skills, a place to think of your life and the road you're travelling on."

Ms West's own path led her from nursing studies to correctional services more than a decade ago.

Like many officers she has come from a career centred around people and service.

"They want to make a difference to the community. They want to make the community a safer place," she said.

"I wanted my children to be safe when they walk to the shop or while playing sport."

A milestone can simply be a day where no one is hurt.

But at it's greatest, Ms West's role is link in a chain that can turn an individual's life around and break a generational cycle of crime.

"The highlight for me is seeing somebody who has completed their sentence [and] all programs they need to complete to address their offending behaviour and I can see a massive attitude change from when they first came into custody to when they're leaving," she said.

"It's a success story if they don't come back."