When Tiffany St Clair first entered the NSW prison system on remand she was told by a guard to "treat it as a holiday" and "sleep through it".
Having been arrested on a non-violent traffic offence carrying a mandatory imprisonment term, there was nothing she could access in the way of counselling, rehabilitation or mental health support.
"People think prison is where rehabilitation happens but it is so overcrowded, you wait for a really long time to get into courses, if there are any available to you," Ms St Clair told AAP.
"I was dealing with addiction, domestic violence and trauma and I look back now and realise I was a young girl who didn't know how to grieve and just slipped through the cracks.
