By Rachael Harris
MELBOURNE — About 150 people attended a memorial on March 26 at the Melbourne Town Hall for women who have died in custody or shortly after being released from custody. Women in Fairlea and Barwon prisons also held their own memorials on the day.
The memorial was organised by the Victorian Women and Imprisonment group, which is made up of workers from community organisations who have contact with women in the prison system.
Amanda George from the Essendon Community Legal Centre told the gathering that the memorial was to give "a voice to women's lives characterised by silence and to speak out against the myths and lies about prisons".
George said that since 1980, 33 women have died in custody in Australia. Over the last three years in Victoria, 30 women have died after being released from custody. According to the 1990 Review of Suicide and Suicide Attempts of Prisoners in Custody in Victoria, women's rate of suicide in prison is three times higher than in the outside community.
The spokesperson for the Women and Imprisonment, Liz Campbell, expressed concern about many practices in prisons such as mandatory strip searches after contact visits and random urine tests.
"There's a number of these sorts of indignities that are supposedly for the control of the prison situation, that actually shouldn't be part of the punishment. The punishment is that you are no longer free", Campbell said.
"Given that statistically 70 to 80% of women in prison are victims of sexual abuse and incest, you are continually abusing a group of people who are already abused."
Campbell was critical of recent changes to the Victorian women's prison system. "The whole thing happening at the moment is called 'unit management'. That means the welfare workers are diminished in numbers and prison officers take care of particular units, and part of their role is also to listen to the problems of the women. If you're supposed to be policing or you are the authority figure, it's very difficult then for someone to speak to you, especially about something as sensitive as sexual abuse."
She also criticised the lack of sufficient detoxification programs and appropriate counselling.
Campbell explained that when women come out of prison they face a range of problems, including loss of family ties, homelessness and difficulty finding employment, accommodation and financial support.
Aboriginal women face disproportionate levels of imprisonment and high ody. The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody found that although Aboriginal women make up 1.5% of the general population of women nationally, they make up 20% of the women's prison population and 50% of women in police cells. "Of the 33 women who have died in custody, 11 were Aboriginal women", Campbell said.
During the memorial, Aboriginal singer/songwriter Ruby Hunter remembered the deaths of these women through song. Also performed were scenes from Tell Her I Love Her, a play about the difficulties women face after being released from prison.