"I'd be back in jail," she says. "People who come out of jail need support. I came out and everything had changed."

Ms Audino served 3? years in Dame Phyllis Frost women's prison for culpable driving.

After she was released in 2009 she was aided by Melbourne Citymission's Women 4 Work program and now has full-time work as a supervisor with a cleaning company.

"Women 4 Work gave me confidence to say where I'd come from and what I've done, and not hold me back," she says.

Yet the Footscray-based program which has helped more than 154 women newly released from prison to get 16-week job placements and undertake training to help them find jobs has had its funding from the federal and state governments cut.

Melbourne Citymission's Women 4 Work program has been running for close to a decade.

Only one of its participants has reoffended and returned to prison, and many have found full-time work.

Melbourne Citymission justice programs manager Sonia Chudiak said an application for future funding had been rejected.

"We want people to be independent and we don't want people returning to prison," she said. "The most obvious way to address that is to help them get employment.

"We're trying to break the cycle in a positive way, but we [as a society] always respond when things are bad. Let's be proactive, help them get a job, feel good about themselves and be able to support their family."

Greens MP Colleen Hartland described the decision not to continue funding as a "a false economy".

Ms Hartland said it cost between $8000 and $10,000 per person for the Women 4 Work program, compared to more than $100,000 a year to keep a woman in prison.

"The Baillieu government keeps bleating about cutting crime, but they take funding away from a program that has been demonstrated to cut crime dramatically and pay for itself in cost savings."

A Corrections Victoria spokesman said prisoners had access to a range of rehabilitation and support programs to help prepare them for release into the community and help them avoid reoffending.

The spokesman said the Women's Integrated Support Program helped female prisoners with complex needs who might be at higher risk of reoffending, and there was also help for exiting indigenous prisoners "to deal with issues such as housing, employment, family reunification, drug or alcohol issues, mental health and social isolation, and general life skills".