When fashion designer Annah Stretton started the charity RAW three years ago, there were just over 300 women behind bars in New Zealand. Now there are almost 800.
Stretton says the reason for the rise is, in a word, meth.
A meth lab Photo: Supplied
RAW (Reclaim Another Woman) is a residential programme helping women leaving prison break out of a cycle of crime and violence.
Former offenders Stretton has met through the programme tell her it is "very easy" for a woman to build a methamphetamine business, she says.
"Traditionally, it was a man's [work], but now the men are pretty happy to sit back now and let the women do that. And the women are incredibly loyal so they're doing the time, as well."
A minimum-wage factory job is the only other work available to many of the women, and although illegal and unsafe, meth creation appeals to them as a home-based business which is relatively straightforward to set up and can be extremely financially rewarding, Stretton says.
"The stuff that seems so difficult and abhorrent and risky to us … becomes a very normal space for them."
The equipment required to make meth is easily available and transportable and the work generates quick returns, Stretton says.
"It's just a needs must."
Annah Stretton Photo: Supplied
Gender equality is another factor behind women's increasing involvement in the meth industry, Stretton says.
"Just as in your world women are striving for equality with men … we're looking for exactly the same in the criminal world", she was told by a woman who was "very active and very senior in the methamphetamine world".
The reality of working against a drug with the "power and attraction" of meth can be frustrating, Stretton says, but the women coming through the RAW programme give her hope.
RAW is the only model of its kind that the Department of Corrections has recognised as successful.
All of the "heavily recidivist female offenders" who've been through the RAW programme have had success, ranging from de-amplification of their criminal activity to the completion of a degree or diploma, Stretton says.
