ABSTRACT
Sisters Inside is an Australian organisation developed and driven by women with lived prison experience. It exists to advocate for the human rights of criminalised women, girls and their children and also provides services in response to their unmet needs. This chapter reflects on Sisters’ advocacy with and for criminalised women and girls over almost three decades of prison expansion and privatisation. It tracks the organisation’s growing awareness of the logical outcome of its values - a commitment to abolition of the carceral state. In the early years, Sisters Inside largely focused on institutional reform. This chapter explores how Sisters Inside progressively engaged, articulated and became confident in advocating for prison abolition (the “word that was waiting to happen”) through both the public activism and service delivery arms of the organisation. Sisters’ activism, systemic advocacy and law reform operates at a local, state, national and international level. Sisters’ service delivery in Queensland, Australia, equally reflects abolitionist values through the organisation’s model of service, service priorities and staffing. This chapter demonstrates what Sisters Inside has learned about the interdependence of these two aspects of the organisation and explains how they articulate to contribute toward abolition of the carceral state.
