Based at Risdon Prison in the state’s South, Mr Verdouw spends his work days with criminals.

But for him, they’re not just offenders, they are people needing help.

“I think I’m just passionate about seeing the best in people and believing they can change,” he said.

He described three key aspects of his role – to support offenders in adjusting to prison life, to explore their underlying issues and then to develop a plan for them while they are in custody.

“Ideally you would like them to say ‘well I would like to change’,” he said.

Of all the challenges he faces day-to-day, Mr Verdouw said seeing people struggle to make those changes was tough – especially those battling addictions.

“We certainly see a lot of drug use and you have to ask why it is they use drugs … you can’t do good work unless you really understand why they offend so what we do is we look deeply into people’s lives and ask the questions, ‘is it a broken family … is it trauma?’.

“If you’ve ever tried to give up something, whether it be chocolate or coffee or cigarettes, you know how hard that is.

“When somebody has lived a lifestyle that’s been antisocial for 20 to 25 years and then they have to make change it’s so difficult.”

It’s not all drug use and bad news at the prison though, he said.

Sharing a “good news story”, Mr Verdouw described a woman who had completed a program within the prison before being released.

“I remember a woman saying to me that when she finished the program and went back into normal life, the first thing she did was she went out and had the most major binge drinking session and she woke up from it and thought ‘this is really stupid’, I have just been sober and straight for three months what am I doing’, then she never touched it again. 

“Those stories are worth 10 bad stories.”

Sharing his own story as part of national Corrections Day, Mr Verdouw said the work done by the Tasmanian Prison Service staff was “very important”.

“We work very closely with the whole structure of the prison and community safety is our priority.

“There are the officers who need to focus on safety and security and maintain routine and rules within the prison, and that’s really important work, then once that’s in place we can do that really meaningful rehabilitation.

“When I talk to people in the community sometimes it’s ‘throw away the key’ … but there are two ways people can come back into the community – angry, unchanged and likely to re-offend or with some level of rehabilitation. What we do is really important.”