Meet the women KEEPING KILLERS IN CHECK!

Margie and Heidi are two hard-working regional women with a difference

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There's a strange eeriness in the air as Woman's Day walks through the doors of Wellington Correctional Centre in the NSW Central West.

Home to some of Australia's most dangerous prisoners, the infamous jail has seen riots, fires, sieges and even a mouse plague. But not today.

"When it's quiet, that's when you know something is about to happen," services and programs officer Margie, 58, tells us as we tour the cell blocks inside the men's maximum-security block.

Despite the bustle of green-clad inmates who are finishing up their morning jobs and the welcoming sight of correctional officers standing nearby, there's a feeling that the mood could shift at any moment.

And as Margie and her colleague Heidi admit, it's not always the scariest inmates who are the biggest threats.

"If I've got a murderer, they can be politer and treat us better than someone who's in here for a petty charge," says Heidi, 22. "There's no cookie cutter criminal... and I've seen a terrorist all the way down to a drink driver."

LESSONS LEARNED

As two of 16 officers, or "SAPOS" as the inmates like to call them, at the jail, located 50km south of Dubbo, the women work one-on-one with violent inmates, such as murderers, thieves and domestic violence perpetrators.

The four-month High Intensity Programs Unit, which sees groups of up to 18 male inmates at a time, focuses on topics such as family violence, addiction and aggression and gives them the tools to put their right foot forward.