Claire Harvey: Prison time hard yakka

Deep-fried mashed potato balls and meat pie.

That's what was on the menu at Mt Eden Women's Prison, on the first night of fallen politician Donna Awatere Huata's new life as an inmate.

Some of the prisoners probably love that kind of tucker, but for Huata it must have seemed a cruel and unusual meal, for food - and the control of her own eating - have loomed large in the life of this woman, once grossly fat and now very thin.

For her, that plateful of pie and spuds represents more than just a meal; it represents the denial of the hard-won power to control what she eats, and when, and how much.

For Huata, and for every prison inmate, the real pain of life behind bars is being denied the simplest personal liberties.

Anyone who says jail is a holiday camp - like, say, Huata's former political colleagues in the Act Party - should have a think about what it must be like to lose all freedom of choice.

When the lady herself loomed large, she was so desperate to be slim she was prepared to commit a crime to get there. She stole money intended for underprivileged children, and used it for a stomach-stapling operation. Her miserable self-loathing prompted her to lie about how she had lost the weight, and then to go to jail continuing to defend that lie.

In jail, she must eat at regulated meal-times. She must eat what is served up, or go hungry. She is not allowed to control her own exercise regime.

That is what imprisonment is about, and although these little choices might sound trivial, anyone who understands women knows that food and weight and control are very closely bound up with self-worth and happiness.

As Act's justice spokesman Stephen Franks and leader Rodney Hide launched their law-and-order policy this week, they mocked the "soft" conditions inside the nation's penitentiaries, where prisoners get to watch TV, play cards and read books.

"Act will deliberately make prisons unpleasant. There will be no more resort conditions. If it takes hard labour then so be it," the pair said in their statement.

Act's policy rejects the idea that imprisonment itself is a punishment to be feared, saying the prospect of breaking rocks in the hot sun would make potential criminals think twice about risking a jail term.

But they don't seem to understand that prison is intrinsically unpleasant - astonishing from a party whose own guiding principle is that personal liberty comes first.

"Individuals are the rightful owners of their own lives and therefore have inherent freedoms and responsibilities," trumpets Act's website.

"They say prison is a holiday camp but I doubt Rodney Hide will be checking into Paremoremo rather than Club Med on his next holiday," says Dr Jan Jordan, a senior lecturer in criminology at Victoria University.

The deprivation of liberty sometimes has a greater impact on female inmates than on men, Jordan says.

"There is a very high incidence of depression and self-mutilation in the female prison population, and a lot of them have to be prescribed medication to help them deal with being cut off from family, the extra anxiety about what's happening to their children on the outside, and the total reliance on prison officers."

Prison is a killer of self-esteem and self-worth; the very problems which caused Huata to decide she needed surgery, and then steal the money to get it.

In her trial, Huata spoke of the enormous pressure she felt to be slender and attractive, even appealing to the jury's sympathy by saying she was mortified by the mockery dished out to other fat politicians.

Before her lies were exposed, she told women's magazines she had lost the weight through discipline, diet and daily exercise.

The prison diet will be "very, very unpleasant" for Huata, says dietitian Elizabeth Buchanan, who has 35 years' experience in dealing with weight problems and often treats women who have gastric bypass operations like Huata.

"If the food is all fried and pastry and fatty, she won't digest it well, she will feel ill, she will generally be finding the food itself and the lack of choice very unpleasant."

Huata won't get much sympathy from Stephen Franks. The justice spokesman noted when releasing the policy that he had only added the final touches in the past three weeks - coincidentally, the same period in which Huata was being convicted, sentenced and assigned to her cell.

Sandra Paterson is taking a break from her column while working on a book.

Claire Harvey is a Herald features staff writer.