Anne Hooker changed the lives of young offenders – so why was she sidelined?

It was a tip-off from a judge – a suggestion to interview a prison officer getting startling results with young inmates inside Port Phillip Prison.

I went to the appropriate authorities who responded appropriately. Then there was silence. That was back in 2017 and every six months I would repeat the request. Each request was greeted politely, but the shutters remained up. I always wondered why.

Anne Hooker worked as a prison officer for 13 years for Corrections Victoria, and Port Phillip Prison for a further 23 years. From 2005 she was the supervisor of the Penhyn Unit for male offenders aged 18 to 25.

She was so successful there was a waiting list to enter the unit, recidivism rates were slashed, and she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study youth prison programs in Britain, the Netherlands, United States and Canada.

She is an expert in youth self-harm and suicide prevention, has won multiple community awards and in 2023 received the Medal of the Order of Australia.

In 2010, The Age selected her as one of the top 100 influential people for the year.

She is one of a handful of experts who have the practical and academic experience to provide at least some of the answers to our youth crime epidemic.

Yet, she is unemployed.

More of that later.

Not that long ago she was walking her dog when a man crossed the road to talk. “He asked if I remembered him and I said his face looked familiar,” Hooker recalls.

“He said he had been in the unit, was now married, had a child and was working in the construction industry and he wanted to thank me. It meant a lot.”

Hooker’s methods are easy to say, harder to implement, and unfashionably old-fashioned.

First she would scan the list of new prisoners. “I would look for first-time offenders or those who have done short stints because they can be changed,” she says.

“They needed to want to participate in the program, be willing to change and abide by the rules.”

She provided hope and a safer place than mainstream prison. There were courses in anger management, health and hygiene, cooking and budget management, job hunting, English and maths.

Hooker enforced a three strikes and you’re out policy. “You must give people a chance to make mistakes.”

For Hooker, there are four pillars.

Care

“Many young offenders think, ‘I don’t care so why should I care about anyone else?’ They don’t belong and the only ones that matter are their peers, which is why they join a gang.

“We have to teach them the value of caring. If you don’t care, then you can do anything to anyone, and it doesn’t matter.

“These young men missed out on the basics. We had the conversations these kids never had.”

Effectively, they had to be rebuilt and be given the tools to survive in the outside world.

Consequences

“They have to learn there are consequences, both good and bad. Some of them have missed the very basic lessons of life. Inside jail the consequences are immediate while outside they are not. It sounds basic but it works.”

What Hooker says seems self-evident, but it drives to the core.

Conventional wisdom is that young offenders should only be sent to jail as a last resort, which is why so many are repeatedly bailed. The unintended consequence is they can continue to offend because punishment is delayed.

“How can they learn if there are no immediate consequences for actions? This is why they continue to offend. They need an opportunity to learn from their mistakes,” she says.

Hooker challenged the conventional model of prison as punishment and built a system based on discipline and compassion. She succeeded but made enemies along the way, people with long memories.

Responsibility

“They have had things done for them, done to them, things done about them but not done by them,” Hooker says.

“We would get them jobs in prison such as working in the laundry. Some are cushy jobs, but they learn if they work they can get those cushy jobs.

“They can be leaders, either positive or negative and if they are negative, they can piss off back to mainstream jail.”

As part of the program the inmate must confront what they did to get there in the first place.

“Most prisoners don’t talk about the crime. In my unit they had to face what they had done.

“They might say it was a joke or an accident, but they had to learn it wasn’t and recognise the harm they caused.”

Community

“If they are to find their way back into the community we have to find ways of involving the community.”

Hooker started a small company run by the inmates – “Doin’ Time”, a T-shirt screening business with the profits (more than $130,000) going to charities.

On Mondays, business people would go to the unit to teach and mentor the inmates.

“We would invite the families to a presentation night to show what they have done,” she says.

Maybe, for the first time the families and the inmates had something to be proud about.

Six young inmates made a documentary about prison life called Stories From The Inside – an insight that shows there is no glamour in prison, just grind, rules and a relentless routine. The message was clear. Don’t come here.

By the time she was recognised in 2023 in the Australian honours she had fallen out with management. She left in 2022 and the unit was shut the following year.

So what happened?

A senior staff member who worked with Hooker says: “I was a big supporter of Anne, but she was a polarising figure. There were people who didn’t agree with her methods and did not warm to her.

“In 2015 she was judged the international correctional officer of the year.”

‘She was so passionate she could just go off and do her own thing without following the rules.’

Senior officer

The senior officer said Hooker needed a strong supervisor who could guard her back and rein her in when necessary. “She could be a bit loose with procedures. She was so passionate she could just go off and do her own thing without following the rules.”

He remembers a time when a group of at-risk teenage school boys were brought into the prison after hours to see their potentially grim future.

“They were not focused and not interested and here we were, giving up our own time for them. Then Anne addressed them and made an immediate connection. She is a good person and a good officer who needed support. She has an amazing capacity to connect with young people.”

He says because of her success prison officers wanted to work in the unit and it had one of the lowest levels of sick leave in the jail.

An external study showed inmates who completed her course were about 10 per cent less likely to return to prison.

Let’s say Anne’s program saved just two inmates a year from returning to prison and the average term of imprisonment for young offenders who turned into hardened criminals was five years. Over the 17-year span where she was in charge that is 34 inmates who would have served 170 years at a cost just shy of $25 million.

If each one of those young offenders had not been changed and each had gone on to commit just three home invasions, that is 100 families that have been saved from the trauma of becoming crime victims.

“You can’t change the world, but you can have little wins,” he says.

Jane Tewson is founder of Igniting Change, an organisation that helps young people affected by the justice system. “I love Anne’s work. She always put the interests of her boys first. We could see the change she made in their lives.

“The businesses she started had an incredible impact.”

Tewson said when she went to the unit a new inmate would never look her in the eye. “Within a couple of weeks you could feel the change.

“She changed the lives of some of those young men.

“You talk to these boys in prison, and they will often say, ‘No one ever asks how I am’. Anne would always ask.”

Igniting Change introduced business leaders to the program in the hope they would offer employment pathways for the inmates on release. “Her methods worked.”

Hooker was so committed to her inmates she would give character evidence in court – for the right ones. “Sometimes lawyers would ring me to give evidence and I would say that I would, but I’m not sure that you will like what I have to say. I wouldn’t lie for them.”

I met Anne at an Altona coffee shop less than 10 kilometres from Port Phillip Prison where she made such a difference. In a few weeks time it will be decommissioned.

She is looking for a job. “I still think I have a lot to give.”

At a time when youth crime is out of control it is crazy to leave such an expert sitting drinking coffee in the middle of the day.

Any politician with a brain and a desire to be re-elected should pick up the phone. At the end of the call you might just have a new policy. One that works.

John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld. Subscribers can sign up to receive his Naked City newsletter every Thursday.