THE JAIL WIVES CLUBS
AUSSIE MUM LENI IS SUPPORTING WOMEN WITH HUSBANDS BEHIND BARS
From the outside, Leni could seem like a typical Australian mother of five.
Her life is organised chaos – full of nappies, early morning school runs, crayons all over the wall and screaming toddlers at bath time.
Sadly, however, the young mum is doing it all alone. For the past few years, her husband has been in prison.
She isn’t proud of his actions or criminal behaviour, but the 29-year-old has managed to make lemonade out of lemons.
While waiting patiently for her husband Jay to serve his time, Leni has formed a ‘jail wives club’, helping other women in the same boat.
She also provides support, friendship and pen-pal communication for lonely prisoners who don’t have loved ones on the outside waiting for their release.
“I have to hold down everything on the outside. I raise five kids alone while supporting him in there,” Leni tells New Idea.
“There are so many women like me. It’s hidden. There’s no help for us, there’s no support. We are judged daily if you say, ‘Oh yeah, my partner’s in jail’; people – they look at you like you’re not human.
“There is a community. I don’t discriminate against anybody. I don’t judge anybody. I’ve spoken to women who have partners who are in for murder. They come to me and say, ‘You know, nobody understands what I’m going through. I love this man’.”
Leni’s husband Jay is mid-way through serving a sentence of four years and 10 months for assault. The busy mum knows very well he made a terrible decision and has accepted he needs to pay the consequences.
But it doesn’t make it any easier being one of Australia’s thousands of ‘jail wives’.
Sadly, Leni’s youngest bub has only ever known life with his father in prison.
“My littlest will be 2 in three months now and he doesn’t have a relationship with his daddy because we barely see him, maybe once every five months,” Leni explains.
“My kids know everything about the jail. They go to the jail; they understand daddy did something wrong and if you do something wrong in life when you’re an adult, or a child, you can go to jail, and you’ve got to do the amount of time and then you’re allowed to come home.
“I’m so honest and open about it all to them.”
While struggling to deal with raising her children alone, Leni supports other women in the same position as her by giving advice, blogging and speaking to her thousands of followers on Instagram.
She says being honest about her own life helps other women not feel ashamed.
“Every single day I get messages; sometimes I get overwhelmed. I’ve even got a 14-year-old mother and her partner is in jail; she comes to me for help,” Leni says.
“The whole process is a waiting game … waiting for court, waiting for an outcome, waiting for a visit.
“It’s just waiting, so I think I’m just used to it. That’s what I tell women
– it becomes normal.”
Leni’s blog started as a coping mechanism to help deal with her husband being locked
away in prison.
However, as her following grew, the selfconfessed ‘jail wife’ started to help others, including men who are married to female prisoners,
“THERE ARE SO MANY WOMEN LIKE ME, IT’S HIDDEN … THERE’S NO HELP FOR US”
and just about anyone with a family member on the inside.
“It’s gone from jail wives or jail girlfriends or jail mums and sisters, to men. Men that have their wives in jail are following me,” she says.
Leni has also connected many of her husband’s fellow inmates with penpals, a small joy that she says keeps them sane during the toughest days behind bars.
“I’ve helped over 90 inmates so far. They’re looking for their name to be called on mail day and get mail,” she says.
“It hurts them to not get mail. Week after week of getting nothing, they just think, ‘Everybody’s forgotten about me, I’ve got no-one’.”
Publicly sharing her life as a ‘jail wife’ does have its downfalls for Leni. She has been a victim of trolling and cruel messages – but she is determined to make her marriage work, even when she is separated from her husband by steel bars.
“This is my life. It’s normal for me. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
“I manage and I do it every single day,” Leni says.
“I understand the commitment and the vows I took on that day. I understand that marriage is hard but you need to love harder.”