Disaster 'A mass imprisonment crisis': why more women are doing time


Jenna Hughes
Jenna Hughes, a former police officer, spent three months of her 12-month sentence in an isolation cell in an effort to protect her from the other prisoners. ‘Five years on I still struggle, I still have anxiety and I think about prison every day,’ she says. Photograph: Russell Shakespeare/The Guardian

Seven years ago, Rhonda Davis went to a party with her partner. She fell asleep at the wheel on the drive home. He died, and she was sentenced to five years in prison, half of which had to be served as hard time.
The Kamillaroi woman was part of the fastest-growing subset of Australia’s prison population. She is one of six women to write about her experience behind bars for a new series by Guardian Australia.
It comes as a new report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that women in prison have experienced disproportionately high rates of homelessness and insecure housing, mental health issues, drug and alcohol addiction, chronic illness, and physical trauma. And just 17% of female prisoners have finished year 12.
Although women and girls make up just 8% of the total prison population in Australia, the female prison population increased 64% between 2009 and 2019, while the male prison population grew by 45%.
Like Davis, 33% of the women and girls in jail in Australia are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, compared with 28% of the male prison population.

'I fell asleep at the wheel': my life changed the day my partner died​


Rhonda Davis




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“Australia is in the midst of a mass imprisonment crisis,” says Monique Hurley, the legal director for the Human Rights Law Centre. “Too often, discriminatory laws and excessive police powers form a toxic combination that results in more and more women being separated from their families and funnelled into the prison system.”


The numbers of women in prison are growing worldwide. Between 2000 and 2016 the number of women in prison increased by 53%, growing at twice the rate of the total prison population and more than twice the rate of the general population.


In Australia, researchers have identified two possible causes for the increase: either women are suddenly committing more serious crimes and therefore getting more jail time, or laws and policing practices have shifted so that minor crimes are now met with more severe penalties.


The tightening of bail laws, use of mandatory sentencing, and a shift for longer sentences for drug offences are among the reasons that the female prison population may be increasing, says the president of the Australian Law Council, Pauline Wright.

Frances Drake spent three years on remand at Silverwater correctional centre. According to the AIHW, 40% of women in jail in Australia are on remand, meaning they have not been found or pleaded guilty to a crime.



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Frances Drake spent three years on remand at Silverwater correctional centre. According to the AIHW, 40% of women in jail in Australia are on remand, meaning they have not been found guilty to a crime. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
Hurley says that is the case in Victoria, where an “onerous, dangerous and discriminatory bail system” that was intended to target violent men has instead disproportionately impacted impoverished women.


Anna Ritson, the head of justice and education at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), says it is possible that policy changes intended to increase community safety, like tighter bail laws, have resulted in more women being imprisoned.


“Whenever policy parameters are changed, whether they are at a national or state level, it’s only when those policies are enacted, despite all and every effort being made to understand the impact of those changes, that you can see some of the perverse impacts that they may have,” Ritson says. “So while there might be favourable outcomes for most people, there will always be some who are disproportionately negatively impacted and I think that absolutely can contribute to women being incarcerated at a higher rate than they have been before”.


The AIHW report is based on interviews with 20% of all women who entered or exited prisons in every Australian jurisdiction except New South Wales during a two-week period in 2018.


It found that women in prison overwhelmingly came from disadvantaged backgrounds and had histories of poverty, domestic violence, social deprivation and childhood trauma.


“It’s really rare that imprisonment, experiences of violence, insecure housing, and those kinds of things happen alone,” says Ritson. “They often happen in tandem. And so what we’ve tried to do by putting out this report is to shed a light on just how many of these vulnerabilities these women experience.”


Responses collated from 117 women found that the highest level of education most women had attained was year 10 or a trade certificate. One in four were unemployed and looking for work in the 30 days prior to being incarcerated, and just 15% were in full or part-time work or study. Some 27% were in short-term or emergency accomodation in the month before entering prison, and 7% were sleeping rough or in a squat.

blonde woman stands with back towards camera



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‘I had a stereotypical view of prisoners before I became one. But I since realised that the majority of these women had broken lives. Who was I to judge?’ Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
The number of people presenting at homelessness services who have been recently released from prison has also increased, says Ritson.


“So there’s an issue at intake and there is also an issue at exit,” she says. “It’s important to consider a custodial setting as part of the community because people are often incarcerated for quite short periods of time, and they will be released back into the community at some point. It’s important that the needs of those people, particularly women, are considered upon release.”


Women entering prison often already had complex health needs, says Ritson. Almost half of all women surveyed described their mental health on entry to prison as fair or poor, and 40% described their physical health as fair or poor. More than a third had been diagnosed with a chronic condition, 86% smoked, and 74% had used illicit drugs in the past 12 months – particularly methamphetamines. Just 1% of the general population has tried methamphetamine, but 61% of prison entrants reported using it.


More than a third reported having a head injury that resulted in them being knocked unconscious at some point in their lives, and 15% experienced ongoing symptoms related to that head injury.


“That can be as a result of their own experiences of violence through their life,” says Ritson. “It’s a really worrying and troubling finding.”


Davis says she turned her time into a positive experience, but still experiences daily “feelings of self-hate and guilt” over the death of her partner. She received permission for her five-month old son to stay with her at Emu Plains correctional centre in NSW, and used her time in jail to qualify as an alcohol and drugs counsellor, and to grieve the loss of three siblings to suicide – two died before she entered jail, and her brother died while she was incarcerated. She was not allowed to attend the funeral.


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“I can honestly say that prison saved my life and I took every opportunity it threw at me,” she says. “It was important that I bonded with my son, and I am thankful for the programs and education they offered.”


According to the AIHW report, 114 women were pregnant when they were checked in to prison in 2017, and 25 gave birth while in custody. Sixty-nine children were living in custody with their parents. Of the women surveyed in 2018, 54% had at least one dependant child.


Sydney woman Frances Drake began using methamphetamine after the deaths of her son and her husband. “Friends would come over and we would take ice together but I was the one who could get the best quality so I ended up getting it for all of us,” she says. “That was a mistake, it made me a drug dealer.”


Drake spent three years on remand at Silverwater correctional centre. According to the AIHW, 40% of women in jail in Australia are on remand, meaning they have not been found or pleaded guilty to a crime. In an account written for Guardian Australia, Drake says she was released to a “barely appropriate halfway house” immediately on being sentenced.

Rhonda Davis with her son



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Rhonda Davis says she turned her time in prison into a positive experience by studying to qualify as a drug counsellor, but she still experiences daily ‘feelings of self-hate and guilt’ over the death of her partner. Photograph: Russell Shakespeare/The Guardian
“I was given $50, a bag of underwear that had been sent into me during my incarceration and told to go and see Centrelink and report to parole within 24 hours,” she says. She still gets anxiety attacks about the time she spent in a windowless isolation cell, and has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.


Jenna Hughes, a former police officer, spent three months of her 12-month sentence in an isolation cell in an effort to protect her from the other prisoners. “Five years on I still struggle, I still have anxiety and I think about prison every day,” she says.


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Another woman, who remained anonymous, was jailed for 11 months for aggravated sexual assault for sleeping with a 15-year-old male student, following the breakdown of a marriage in which she was abused.


“I had a stereotypical view of prisoners before I became one. But I since realised that the majority of these women had broken lives. Who was I to judge?”


Deb Killroy, the founder of Sister’s Inside, an advocacy group supporting women and girls in prison, says the prison system is itself a source of trauma for already vulnerable women. She is an advocate for prison abolition.


“I always talk to women about it’s not their shame, it’s the state’s shame,” she says. “We are so much more than the worst thing we have ever done. They keep us stuck with the label that we are given: an offender. But everyone else is given the opportunity to transform.”


• Crisis support services can be reached 24 hours a day: Lifeline 13 11 14; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78; Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636
 
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Although women and girls make up just 8% of the total prison population in Australia, the female prison population increased 64% between 2009 and 2019, while the male prison population grew by 45%.
You know, it's real easy to grow from those admittedly low numbers.
I obviously have no concrete numbers, but it's like this:
  • take 1000 prisoners
  • 8% of that is 80, easy so far
  • meaning the rest, 920 is men
  • multiply 80 by 1,64
  • we get 131,2, I'll be generous and round it up to 132
  • the growth for men is 45%, meaning 1334 in this example
Regarding all the qualitative points - low education, poor health, homelessness, smoking, drinking, etc - that's the same, if not worse for male prisoners.
Besides, women get demonstrably shorter sentences for the exact same crime than men.

Excuse me for not giving a single fuck.
Not going to prison is real easy, too: just don't commit a crime.
 
Or, and here's a shocking concept, maybe women there are starting to actually be held accountable for some of their actions rather than given preferential treatment in nearly every single aspect of life.

I know, I know, it's a shocking concept to imagine that if you commit a crime you risk facing penalties for that crime, even if you have a pussy.
 
“I always talk to women about it’s not their shame, it’s the state’s shame,” she says. “We are so much more than the worst thing we have ever done. They keep us stuck with the label that we are given: an offender. But everyone else is given the opportunity to transform.”
I thought that showing remorse and taking responsibility for your actions was part of the rehabilitation process.

Sounds like these hoes need to keep their heels cool in a cell.
 
74% had used illicit drugs in the past 12 months – particularly methamphetamines. Just 1% of the general population has tried methamphetamine, but 61% of prison entrants reported using it.
Guys, I think I figured out why more people are going to prison.

You'll never believe it.
used her time in jail to qualify as an alcohol and drugs counsellor, and to grieve the loss of three siblings to suicide – two died before she entered jail, and her brother died while she was incarcerated.
What the fresh hell is going on here?
 
We're just working on overrepresentation of men (in prison). One step at a time ladies, we'll get there.
 
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Relevant:

Gang of transgender women drop-kicked then stamped on 19-year-old man in Tube attack after he told them they needed to have female genitalia to be women

  • Tamsin Lush, Tylah Jo Bryan and Amarnih Lewis-Daniel attacked the 19-year-old
  • Lush 'drop-kicked' him and mother-of-four Hannah Bryan, 24, joined in the attack
  • Lush, Daniel-Lewis and Tylah-Jo Bryan were all sentenced to a six-month curfew
  • Daniel-Lewis was made to complete 20 days rehabilitation activity requirement
  • But Hannah Bryan, 24, of Barking, was given conditional discharge for two years
 
so you have to actually click thru to a second article (archive) to get the full story on the 'i fell asleep' dumbass

My partner at the time and I went to a doof party in the middle of nowhere. The next 48 hours were awesome but they would turn into the absolute worst nightmare imaginable. I had taken a few drugs while we were there – drugs that I hadn’t heard of before. Knowing I had to drive home for work on Monday, I didn’t have anything to drink or take any drugs that day and honestly thought I was fine to drive, as so many of us do.

I was charged with dangerous driving occasioning death, driving under the influence of an illegal substance occasioning death, possessing an illegal substance, and driving a vehicle while unregistered and uninsured. But the feelings of self-hate and guilt that I live with daily are the hardest part.

how odd (lol) that the original story doesn't mention the 2+ day bender that preceded this poor, put-upon woman innocently dozing off at the wheel and killing her bf, not to mention the fact that she was charged with DUI & possession

the (premoderated, ofc) comments on that link are wild - it's almost entirely 'omg what an inspiring story of strength and resolve'. several go so far as to partially blame the 'partner' for going to sleep himself and ending up dead. lmao, women most affected indeed.
 
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