ABSTRACT
While the needs of women prisoners have received a greater acknowledgement within corrective services and academia, the smaller group of incarcerated women with cognitive disabilities has not generated the same level of awareness. It is reasonable to conclude that these women share similar characteristics to non-disabled women prisoners. However, the difference lies in their notably higher levels of vulnerability, arising from compromised cognition and poor adaptive skills. This chapter is based upon research undertaken in women’s prisons in different Australian jurisdictions. Participants included 11 Indigenous and 12 non-Indigenous cognitively disabled incarcerated women, and ten prison practitioners tasked with their care. Focusing on participant narratives, key issues impacting the women’s lives in prison are explored. What emerges are life stories that expose the limitations of a criminal justice system in which cognitively disability in women’s prisons, where the main objective is security and containment, is afforded low priority. This chapter highlights not only the incongruity of using prison as a depository for this group of women but the inadequacy of community responses to vulnerability.
