ABSTRACT
Across every jurisdiction of the criminal punishment system, women, and more specifically Indigenous women, are the fastest growing prison cohort in Australia. However, women’s needs and the complexity in the lives of many of the women disappeared into the carceral system continue to be ignored. From prisons designed for male prisoners, to the carceral system persisting in treating women’s lived experience as risk factors, to institutionalised settings that render women vulnerable to violence – this system is failing women and killing them. While women’s needs are invisibalised by the system, this also extends to an erasure or silencing of their voices and experiences. This chapter, written by authors with lived experience, will draw on the lived experience of a wide range of women who have been captured and exiled within the systems that exist across Australia. It will include a case study and direct quotes, with a focus on elevating lived experience voices in an effort to pave a path to liberation.
