Kilroy, Debbie --- "The Prison Merry - Go - Round: No Way Off" [2005] IndigLawB 48; (2005) 6(13) Indigenous Law Bulletin 25

The Prison Merry-Go-Round: No Way Off

by Debbie Kilroy

In Australia, Indigenous women continue to suffer the shameful and devastating impact of colonisation. From residential schools and missions to child ‘welfare’ seizure (stolen generations), juvenile and adult imprisonment; Indigenous women and girls are vastly overrepresented in state-controlled institutions. Indeed, even as we work to de-institutionalise and de-carcerate, we are fearful that ‘treatment’, used in both youth and adult prison systems across Australia, will be the next colonial control method of choice.

Depending on which jurisdiction we look at across Australia, Indigenous women make up between 23 and 42 per cent[1] of the total women’s prison population. Indigenous women have the most horrific experiences of violence and abuse before entering our prison cells. Eighty-nine per cent have been sexually assaulted or abused; 98 per cent have experienced physical violence; 50 per cent were seized from their families as children by statutory authorities.[2] Seventy-seven per cent of Indigenous women will return to prison after release.[3] Between 1993 and 2003, the women’s prison population increased by 110 per cent, as compared with a 45 per cent increase in the general male prison population.[4] However, over the same time period, the Indigenous women’s prison population increased by 343 per cent.[5] At March 2004, Indigenous women were imprisoned nationally at a rate 20.8 times that of non-Indigenous women.[6] These are absolutely horrendous statistics and an appalling indictment on us all as a society.

We all know that women are not the greatest cause of real or perceived risks to others, yet we continue to perpetuate the myth by focusing on risk assessments and correctional programs when it is those responsible for and/or complicit in the destruction of our social safety nets who are in the greatest need of correction. Just as people had to examine their own action, inaction or complicity in the time of genocidal policies and practices in Nazi Germany, those who fail to address this current destructiveness must face the reality that they too play a role in the destruction, directly or indirectly. It is simply not acceptable to hide our heads in the sand or ‘rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic’ as the system becomes more overwhelmed and sinks.[7]

We must instead have the courage and tenacity to challenge the continued creation of laws and policies that effectively criminalise Indigenous women, criminalise poverty, mental disability and victims of genocidal colonisation. We must develop effective tools for classification, assessment and corrections that recognise that people grabbed, sucked or thrown into the criminal and correctional systems are not there because of planned, voluntary and criminally-intentioned actions.

Women who are released from prisons have many different needs and face many different obstacles when they come back into the community; but all newly released women have basic human needs - for food, shelter, clothing and health care - which must be met for them to stay out of the criminal injustice system. When Indigenous women have been asked what they need to stay out of prison after their release into the community, their reply universally includes safe and affordable housing. Isolation, loneliness and despair about the entrapment of poverty are known to draw newly released Indigenous women prisoners back into the cycle of drugs, prostitution and criminal behaviour. Without the resources that most Australians take for granted, a high majority of Indigenous women cannot help but fall back into circumstances that led to their imprisonment.

Through our work with women who are about to be released or who have already been released, Sisters Inside has identified a series of issues that impact upon women attempting to find suitable accommodation for themselves and their children:

• Women in prison are likely to come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and incarceration merely increases poverty levels.
• For those eligible for public housing, waiting lists are very long. Imprisonment also affects placement on the waiting list.
• Prison conditions such as communication restrictions and the institutionalisation of life make it hard for women to look for suitable accommodation in preparation for their release date.
• Boarding houses, domestic violence shelters and other such organisations regularly have specific requirements that create barriers for some women. Some will take women only, some cater only for those with drug and alcohol issues and some will only take women with children.
• Women coming from prison often face discrimination when looking for accommodation. The stigma and marginalisation associated with imprisonment is difficult to overcome.

The release of Indigenous women from incarceration into the community needs to be a fundamental area of concern for all. There needs to be a commitment to ensuring that the community release needs of Indigenous women are met in each state and territory across the country. It is recommended that the range of needs to be addressed include:

• accommodation or housing requirements including halfway houses; satellite units; supported independent living; subsidised and second-stage housing; private home placements (preferably in their own home, a familial home or home community, as opposed to glorified foster-home types of placements which provide more limited, potentially infantilising environments);
• financial support; including paid and voluntary training and employment placements and options, facilitating access to social assistance, disability support and other income support options;
• personal development and support including bridging and facilitating familial and community contact which includes grief and loss counselling; access to appropriate mental health and drug and alcohol support; access to child care and support; peer and community support groups; recreational opportunities; vocational and tertiary training; and on-the-job training.

All Indigenous women being released from prison should have access to the foregoing support upon release. Moreover, there needs to be a fundamental commitment to ensuring that services are provided with and for Indigenous women whilst they are incarcerated, and tailored to the specific needs of individual Indigenous women. Services presently are far and few between and this needs to be addressed by all levels of government with an assurance that they will develop and deliver funding and resources to the community in jurisdictions that currently have no support services. In other jurisdictions where there are limited support services for Indigenous women being released from prison, funding and resources need to be increased to an equitable level.

Further, it is fundamental that governments are encouraged to resource communities to establish meaningful community involvement for Indigenous women during their incarceration. Effective community involvement includes work release options, programming facilitated by community escorts, programs for healing and personal development, centres and services specifically targeting women, and allowances like work release and leave of absence.

Sisters Inside is of the opinion that a number of pilot projects need to be developed and delivered as specific post-release services for Indigenous women. Such pilot projects include:

• working in conjunction with the Indigenous women in prison as well as community members and organisations, with input from prison staff, to identify the needs of Indigenous women in prison in each state and territory;
• assessing the existing resources available, as well as identifying service delivery gaps in all jurisdictions;
• consulting, enhancing and/or developing linkages between state and federal government departments and non-government community-based organisations and resources, particularly Indigenous groups and services;
• proposing community accommodation options for individual states and territories;
• developing plans − including an evaluative mechanism − for the implementation of the proposed community accommodation options;
• providing resources and accommodation models in the community for Indigenous women who are mothers and primary caregivers, which focuses on reconnecting with their children upon release.

We believe that the pilots could be conducted within a 24-month period, which includes resourced evaluation processes within all jurisdictions and result in real support and resources for Indigenous women returning from prison. As stated by Karlene Faith,

For almost any woman, the relief of getting out of prison is quickly replaced by the anxiety of being out.[8]

Debbie Kilroy is the Director of Sisters Inside Inc, a national independent community organisation which exists to advocate for the human rights of women in the criminal justice system, and to address gaps in the services available to them. Sisters Inside works alongside women in prison in determining the best way to fulfill these roles. Debbie was a joint winner of the Human Rights Medal 2004, awarded by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

[1] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Social Justice Report 2004, (2004), 16-17.

[2] Debbie Kilroy (Sisters Inside Inc), Submission of Sisters Inside to the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Queensland requesting an Inquiry into the Discrimination on the Basis of Sex, Race and Disability Experienced by Women Prisoners In Queensland, June 2004, <http://www.sistersinside.com.au/reports.htm> at 13 September 2005.

[3] Australian Bureau of Statistics, Prisoners In Australia 4517.0, (2003), 6.

[4] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, above n 1, 15, citing M Cameron, ‘Women Prisoners and Correctional Programs, Trends and Issues’ (No 194, Australian Institute of Criminology, 2001) 1.

[5] Ibid 15.

[6] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Social Justice Commissioner, above n 1, 16, citing Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘Corrective Services, Australia’, March Quarter 2004, (2004).

[7] Debbie Kilroy, ‘Prisons: Australian’s Default Response to Poverty, Homelessness and Mental Illness – Especially for Women’ (Paper presented at the Refocusing Women's Experience of Violence Conference, Bankstown, 16 September 2005).

[8] Karlene Faith, Unruly Women: The Politics of Confinement and Resistance (1993).