Rhonda's arresting read 'MY LIFE ON THE INSIDE'

After 20 years working behind bars, she finally broke free from her own past to follow her dreams!

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For most of her life, Rhonda Hāpi-Smith was certain about one thing: she wasn't going to be a prison officer like her father and siblings.

But in her thirties, after drifting through unsatisfying jobs, she felt a different kind of pull - toward purpose, structure and service.

Though she knew she would be forever changed once she put on the uniform, she says dedicating the past 20 years of her life to prison work was the right decision.

She has now turned the wild and often dangerous experiences of the past two decades into her first book, Inside the Wire: True Stories from a New Zealand Prison Officer.

Throughout her time working in prisons, writing was always an outlet for Rhonda. From the very beginning, she committed to separating her identity on the inside from who she was in the outside world.

At work, she had a tough exterior to shield herself from constant verbal abuse and she knew how to handle herself in a fight if needed.

As a woman working in men’s prisons, she had to work twice as hard to prove that she was not someone to be messed with.