#24 Ending human rights abuses in Victoria's prisons - with Sarah, Jenny & Monique

Rules to Reality: how regulation shapes, or fails to shape, our daily lives

In August 2021 the Cultural Review of the Adult Custodial Corrections System commenced. It looked at the culture, experiences, systems and processes within Victoria’s prisons and correctional centres. It looked at how these processes do or don’t serve people in custody, and corrections officers working in these settings. It is due to report in the middle of this year.

What disappointed me during the announcement was that on the Expert Panel, which I would add has great expertise and importantly representation from Jill Gallagher who is a prominent and eminently qualified First Nations leader and advocate, is that there was not a person who has lived experience of corrections. There was representation of people who work in the criminal justice system. That imbalance does a disservice to the process, and to people currently or formerly in the system. It should have been remedied.

People with lived experience have been consulted in this process, but as you will hear from Sarah and Jenny, people with lived experience have ample capacity to critically evaluate evidence. By failing to have someone with lived experience on the panel, it reinforces the othering, and tells the community that they shouldn’t be heard as experts.

I want to thank Natasha Dewhirst from Flat Out for supporting this process by connecting me to Jenny and Sarah (pseudonyms I should add), who were both paid for their time and expertise on this podcast. I also want to thank Monique Hurley from the Human Rights Law Centre, who is interviewed and made it happen. Most of all I want to thank Jenny and Sarah, who’s words still ring in my head.

I won’t reflect on the themes of this conversation, I’ll just say listen and act on what these three human rights advocates have to say.

Shownotes:

Flat Out

Learn more about Flat Out: http://www.flatout.org.au/

Sign on to the Homes not Prisons campaign: https://homesnotprisons.com.au/#open-letter

The Women Inside & Out (WIAO) Program is an innovative approach to supporting women who have been criminalised. Based on research, evidence and feedback from the women we have worked with, we have secured three years of philanthropic funding to deliver a longer-term model of care. This project commenced in February 2020 and is funded until February 2023.

The Women Inside and Out Program provides assertive in-reach and outreach support and advocacy services for the increasing number of women in Victoria’s prison system. Through a combination of inclusive support and case management practices, women in the Inside and Out Program will be able to access supports up to six months before they are released and maintain the same worker for a further twelve months when in the community. In this way, relationships built on trust can develop, leading to better outcomes for women in; housing, finances, mental health, physical health and wellbeing, drug and alcohol, social inclusion, and other areas identified by the women.

This program is an important opportunity for Flat Out to develop an improved model of care – through social impact outcomes monitoring and evaluation. The learnings from this program will inform a new Best Practice approach to working with criminalised women.

Human Rights Law Centre

Learn more about the Human Rights Law Centre: https://www.hrlc.org.au/

See their joint submission (with Flat Out and other orgs) to the Corrections Review: https://www.hrlc.org.au/submissions/2021/12/1/cultural-review-of-the-adult-custodial-corrections-system