‘Every person is one mistake away from jail’: corrections officer looks back on 19 years of service

“Every person is one mistake away from jail”: A Tasmanian Prison service stalwart has been recognised for her 19-year commitment to the service. Her biggest lessons from a life working on the inside:

Acting Director of Prisons David Jackson, Retired Correctional Supervisor Alison McIntyre, and Minister for Corrections and Rehabilitation Madeleine Ogilvie. Picture: Elise Kaine

From pool guard to prison guard Alison McIntyre has had a varied career making sure people are safe.

As a swimming teacher Ms McIntyre was tasked with ensuring the safety of the people she was supervising and said the career move into the Tasmanian Prison service was not a “big shift”.

“When you are a pool lifeguard you are supervising people, you are talking to people and making sure they are safe.

“We used very similar skills here,” she said on her last walk through of Mary Hutchinson

Women’s prison, retiring after 19 years at the prison. “Except we didn’t have a water environment, we had a harsher environment”.

“Swimming, people could go home, here they couldn’t,” Ms McIntyre said.

Correctional Supervisor Alison McIntyre Tasmanian recipient Australian Corrections Medal in the Australia Day Honours List for 2025. Picture: Elise Kaine

When she started at Mary Hutchinson, the prison was basically two “cages” with maximum security on one side and minimum and medium on the other.

At the time, the yearly average for women prisoners was 28. Now it is around 70-75.

Ms McIntyre said inadequacies in Tasmania’s housing system and the state’s mental health treatment capabilities were putting more people in prison.

Ms McIntyre said the most impressive, inspirational change in the system during her time in the system was the upgrades to the women’s prison and the new Vanessa Goodwin units which meant guards could interact more easily with prisoners.

Retired Correctional Supervisor Alison McIntyre, Acting Director of Prisons David Jackson and Minister for Corrections and Rehabilitation Madeleine Ogilvie. Picture: Elise Kaine

Ms McIntyre said she hopes to see a move toward more community based corrections in the future, and she wished the Vanessa Goodwin units had been built outside of the prison walls.

She said it was vitally important for prison guards to listen and try to understand where the prisoner was coming from.

Retired Correctional Supervisor Alison McIntyre and Acting Director of Prisons David Jackson. Picture: Elise Kaine

“Don’t rise to their level, stay calm and speak kindly,” Ms McIntyre taught the new guards.

“Let them get off their chest what they’ve got to say and then come back to them later when they’ve calmed down.”

Ms McIntyre’s trauma-informed and humanistic approach to the job had her named as the Tasmanian recipient of the Australian Corrections Medal in the 2025 Australia Day Honours List.

She said she was guided by an older correctional officer early in her career who gave her an important piece of advice.

“Every person is one mistake away from jail,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter what ecological situation you are in, it doesn’t matter where you live or what your family is like- you can make that one mistake and end up in jail,” Ms McIntyre said.

Minister for Corrections and Rehabilitation Madeleine Ogilvie said Ms McIntyre was a “maestro” of the “small things”.

“We’ve found that a trauma-informed approach best enables correctional officers to connect with prisoners and effect positive change,” Ms Ogilvie said.

With recent data showing Tasmania spends more per prisoner with the worst outcomes of any state, Minister for Corrections and Rehabilitation Madeleine Ogilvie said there was an infrastructure pipeline building “continuous improvement” in the sector.

Originally published as ‘Every person is one mistake away from jail’: corrections officer looks back on 19 years of service