Rising rate of jailed Indigenous women rings alarm bell

Keira Jenkins |

Indigenous women are the fastest-growing group of people being jailed in Australia.
Indigenous women are the fastest-growing group of people being jailed in Australia.

Rocket Bretherton says her time in prison was the lowest part of her life. 

Ms Bretherton is a survivor of domestic and family violence who says contact with the justice system can be re-traumatising. 

“It’s like being with the most abusive person you’ve ever been around – you get told when you can go to the toilet, told when you can shower, told when you can eat,” she told AAP.

“I can’t speak enough about what it does to a person’s mental health and wellbeing.”

Rocket Bretherton (file image)
Former inmate and justice reform advocate Rocket Bretherton says prison life is horrific. ((A)manda Parkinson/AAP PHOTOS)

Most women in prison (85 per cent) have experienced domestic and family violence, a report from prison reform advocacy group Justice Map has found. 

To inform the report, released on Wednesday, yarning circles were conducted with Indigenous people imprisoned or recently released.

Justice Map co-founder Naomi Murphy, who has spent time in prison, said it was the first chance for some women to tell their story.

The Wakka Wakka and Gunggari woman said her experience with the justice system was intergenerational.

“I come from three generations of Black women who have been in contact with the justice system in some shape or form,” she said.

“I’ve broken those chains with my two daughters, so I’m very proud of that.”

Indigenous women are the fastest-growing group of people entering prisons across the nation.

“No other country on earth imprisons any group at rates as high, or as rapidly rising, as Australia imprisons First Nations women, relative to their population size,” the report said.

The Justice Map report is release in Canberra
Justice Map co-founder Naomi Murphy (far right) says the report shows change is urgently needed. (Mick Tsikas/AAP PHOTOS)

 Greens senator Dorinda Cox said the issue required government attention. 

“What Australians and the broader public wouldn’t realise is that we’re like no other country on earth, imprisoning First Nations people at such a phenomenal rate,” she told AAP.

“I think we have to sit up and listen.”

Senator Fatima Payman said the report showed Indigenous women were being punished for surviving gendered violence. 

“This report shows the urgent need to break the cycle of trauma and incarceration with community-led, culturally safe solutions focused on healing, not prisons,” she said.

Ms Murphy said there were numerous factors which led to Indigenous women coming into contact with the justice system, including the ongoing impacts of colonisation and gendered violence. 

“When we talk about domestic and family violence, we also know it’s not part of our culture and never has been,” she said.

“It has contributed immensely to over 230 years of institutionalised incarceration of Black women.”

Justice Map co-founder and project director Melanie Wilde said most women in prison haven’t hurt another person, but often ended in jail after turning to addiction after being subjected to male violence.

More than 30 per cent of women in prison did not have their own accommodation or rental agreement in the month before their incarceration, and nearly 10 per cent were sleeping rough.

Ms Bretherton said safe and affordable accommodation was one of the main barriers for women to stay out of the prison system. 

“If we were to set up housing systems for women coming out on bail and we could have support programs like domestic and family violence support, and drug and alcohol support, we could support women so much better in the community than we can in jail,” she said.

Improving housing access is one of the report’s 18 recommendations, alongside expanding women-centred and community-led services, launching a federal inquiry into women in prison, and reforming laws which criminalise homelessness, unpaid fines and drug use. 

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