The second chance specialists offering prisoners a way out

May 15, 2026 — 11:50am

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Pattie Phillips knew she was going to jail long before anyone else. She had built a financial house of cards that was always going to collapse.

A high-flyer in the travel game, she was caught in her own Ponzi scheme – providing unsustainable discount packages to service her increasing debt, fund a lavish lifestyle and impress friends and colleagues.

She says that while the scheme was “dumb”, she was “crafty”, meaning for a time she was able to delay the inevitable.

“I knew I was going to jail, and I was researching what life would be like inside prison,” she says.

When the scheme collapsed, she was found to have embezzled $500,000. Her lawyer told her she was looking at an 18-month sentence. “I thought that was doable,” she says.

Her lawyer was optimistic. In 2014, she was sentenced to a minimum of four years’ jail.

At her lowest moment, she tried to take her own life with an overdose of pills.

Phillips has rebuilt that life by rebuilding others. For the past 10 years, she has been involved with the organisation Prison Network, first as a client, then as a mentor.

For 80 years, Prison Network has been working with female inmates, providing support and programs inside and hope on the outside.

“For those who remain in our programs the recidivism rate is 5 per cent compared with the average of 45 per cent,” says Phillips.

The prison program that gave Josh a second chance at life on the outside

When she talks to prisoners inside or ex-inmates on the outside, she brings credibility because she has been in their shoes (or more accurately, their prison uniforms).

She remembers being transported to the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre and the humiliation of bending over to be strip-searched.

She says for the first six weeks she “hid” in the reception area, too frightened to venture into the mainstream prison.

Instead of counting the days, she made a decision that would change her life. “Even then, I knew I would be coming out [of prison]. On day two, I went to find what were the prospects for education,” she says.

She did the Inside Out Program, and is now completing a criminology degree.

The Inside Out Prison Exchange Program is a partnership between RMIT University and Corrections Victoria that has been running since........

© The Age