DURHAM prison is a maze of locked doors, barbed wire, reinforced concrete, intercom systems, bars and bolts. There's no such thing as entering the labyrinthine world in a rush; sliding electric doors open at snail's pace, handprints are taken, bags are checked and bodies are frisked for metal before you can even step foot inside the jail. Going into the high security women's wing is like entering a secret enclosure which only a few, key-jangling officials have access to. I walk into the sterile area through which everyone must walk to visit the wings.

And chances are, for the majority of those who enter the premises without a prison officer's uniform on, it's no fleeting visit.

Every woman is initially taken to a reception area, strip-searched and given time to herself, to sit and understand the impact of what's to come as the staff begin the sensitive process of describing the rhythm of their new worlds to them.

This period of sitting in the middle-ground gives the inmate a chance to acclimatise to the long-term reality of four, closed-in walls and splintered light filtering-in between shafts of metal, an everyday view from here on.

It is only then that she is taken to join the 108 others in the only high security women's wing in the country. It holds some category A prisoners, who, if they ever escaped, would prove a great source of embarrassment to both the Government and the prison service.

As I pass, I peer into a stark cell which I'm told is a disused holding room and wonder how many women sat in abject isolation, reflecting on their crime and the unforgiving certainty of serving what could be a life sentence with 25, even 30 years inside, before the prospect of parole.

For anyone who thinks prison is not punishment enough, this room would have put the fear of God into you and despite the friendly entry into prison now, the cell still represents a closing off from the world, a retreat from any possibilities beyond the ones plotted in every women's weekly timetable.

It means queuing for communal showers every morning, queuing for the short walk to work which is compulsory for every woman, queuing for a lunchtime sandwich and queuing for the evening meal after that. It means traipsing the four, open-plan corridors of the wing or the yard for exercise and enforced lock-ins some evenings when there are staff shortages.

It makes for a life where the only surprise news comes in manilla envelopes from the world outside, where the concept of contingency and chance happenings is still relevant.

Though the wing looks far prettier than I imagined, with floral murals, plants and pictures, there is no getting away from the fact that this is a jail, and that prison life must inevitably be highly regimented, organised, utterly predictable.

Looking at the cell and everything it symbolises, I reel from the bewildering idea of doing 'life'. Some lifers may be paying for calculated crimes, perhaps against spouses, children or parents. Others are paying for lashing out at strangers, others for a moment of incalculable rage after enduring violence or abuse.

These women's material world is diminished to everything they can fit into a small cell, everything they can buy for £12 a week - or £18 for really big earners - and what they do buy is subject to it featuring in an official prison catalogue.

Looking around the women's cells, the bathrooms are stuffed with shampoos, creams and fragrant soaps. One cell is bursting with all manner of cards. Six months on, Christmas greetings jump out of the wall collage, cute birthday cards with hugging bears are mixed up with poignant 'missing you' messages, poems and pictures of the children in various stages of growing up. The walls are reminders of the world outside where loved ones are living, growing and changing.

Not to say the prisoners aren't. Some women change out of all recognition inside, confronting their crimes through a long and painful process and leaving as changed human beings. While some gain degrees, beauty diplomas and life skills to equip them for the world outside, most take control of their lives and make friends, sadly for the first time in their lives.

I'm ushered past the two safe cells by female centre governor Moira Bartlett, who tells me there's a prisoner in one of the cells as we speak. This area is for the most troubled women, who are either contemplating self-harm or have just harmed themselves.

Self-harm runs like a psychological plague through the wing. When Moira first came into the business, she knew very little about the self-inflicted disorder. Two decades on, she's something of an expert. With nine out of ten women inflicting some sort of injury on themselves as a form of release or desperation inside the wing, either with razors or plastic knives or even Brillo pads, she's seen her fair share of shocking sights.

Everything in the safe cell is fixed to a surface. Moira tells me the technical term is a lack of 'ligature points' from which women can hang or hurt themselves. But however much the prison service vets these rooms for safety, women who are desperate manage to find ways to harm themselves in there.

I walk onto the floor of the women's centre and look up to see vast girders of iron stretching for three more floors above. The wing, with its many cells, staircases, metal gates and alcoves is entirely open-plan, giving the gigantic space a cage-like quality.

But within the cage, there's a warm hub of banter that comes of women living with each other at close quarters; it takes me back to being a teenager again, locked into a world of school corridors, dinner-hall lunches and firm secondary-school friendships.

The grid-like bars are the backdrop to almost every vision in sight, with women waiting to take a short walk to the workshop for a day's work in the foreground.

There is a low hum of conversation emanating from the group as they wait for the nod that activates their day's activities, which may involve making party hats - I'm told our shiny millennium hats were made largely at the hands of these prisoners - knitting, charity work or database entries.

The women, who must know each other's faces as well as any adopted family member's, look at me with open curiosity as I come in. Some stare and smile, others back away shyly. Some approach me to shake hands like ready friends.

I meet one a woman from Camden Town who used to live minutes away from my own childhood haunts in London. Another, who can't speak English, proudly shows me her English copybook and rattles away in Urdu. It's a small world in prison, and common links are quickly found.

One woman sits and shoots the breeze outside her cell, reluctant to talk but determined to set the record straight.

"People think every woman in here is a monster just because it's Durham Prison, but we're not all in for the worst crimes. We're ordinary women getting on with our sentences," she says.

She's in for robbery and I'm told prison has transformed her. She really used to make prison officers work their shift. Now she sits and shines with pride as she tells me she took the star role in a prison musical performance last month. While most women are nothing if not welcoming, most admit they have been injured by the sensationalism that surrounds the female centre, the demonisation that's built-up around them which the press is so keen to cultivate is always a point of grievance, as much for their children, parents and close friends, as it is for them.

"There's a victim to every crime but our families are the invisible victims," says one woman.

"Everything that's written about us hurts them, especially if it's not true, which it isn't for most of the time," says another.

Moira feels it is perhaps easier for us on the outside to brand these women as evil, but it irritates her how the press bolsters up the old clich that no-one wants challenged.

While she sees it as her duty to protect the public from those inside, she knows they are not the monsters society loves to hate. They're women who are serving a sentence, many of whom come from a dysfunctional sector of society or have a history of childhood abuse.

But she's not telling me that to excuse them. It's merely to help me understand the innumerable processes which lead a woman to commit a terrible crime.

The real face of Durham is much more complex than the over-familiar pictures of the notorious prisoners we're used to seeing in tabloids. The much-maligned face of the centre once dubbed as 'She Wing' is brighter, kinder and much more approachable than is often imagined. And as Moira reminds me, just as on the outside, so you get both good and bad on the inside.