Human rights advocates say the state’s expanding prison system and legal changes that make it tougher to access bail and parole are ensnaring disadvantaged women responsible for relatively minor criminal offending linked to poverty and substance abuse. This increase is particularly stark for Aboriginal women, with a 240 per cent jump in the number of female Aboriginal prisoners in Victorian prisons over the past five years. There has been a 50 per cent increase in the total number of female prisoners in Victoria over the same period, according to the most recent prison figures from Corrections Victoria. In comparison, the men’s prison population has risen 40 per cent. About two-thirds of women whose period of remand had ended were released from prison without needing to serve any more time in jail. Ruth Barson, the director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre, says Victoria’s justice system is rife with unfairness and inequality.

Credit:Human Rights Watch “Women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with disabilities and people falling on tough times are hit hardest by punitive bail laws that have seen the number of people behind bars in this state skyrocket,” says Ms Barson. “The Andrews government is criminalising the very women it should be providing support to.” There are also concerns that police, unfamiliar with the dynamics of family violence, are identifying victims who defend themselves as the primary aggressor. In a recent review, the Women’s Legal Service found almost 60 per cent of clients who were named as the respondents to police intervention orders had been incorrectly identified as the perpetrator. The soaring number of Aboriginal women in prison is concerning but not surprising, says Antoinette Braybrook, the chief executive of Djirra, a specialist Aboriginal family violence service.

“We strongly urge governments to respond to these alarming statistics as a matter of urgency so that Aboriginal women can be with their families, and not in prisons,” Ms Braybrook said. “These systems are not broken – they were never designed to support the safety and wellbeing of Aboriginal women.” Christina’s early life was shaped by family dysfunction, and two parents who detested each other. When she was 13 a group of older men preyed on her. It was rape, though she didn’t call it that at the time. So she started drinking, reaching for “something outside myself that would make me feel better”, and was a fully fledged alcoholic by her late teens. But that something soon became heroin, and Christina and her boyfriend were hooked. Home went from a nice house to a crappy house, from a caravan park to emergency accommodation. She tried detox and rehab, but it never stuck. When the pair split, and heartbroken Christina bumped into a dealer she knew, her something became ice.

Home for Christina went from a nice house to a crappy house, then from a caravan park to emergency accommodation. Credit:Jason South Drug dependence, dealing and possession is a common path to prison. One in five women in Victorian prisons have drug offences as their most serious charge, followed by assault offences and property offences. In May, the government increased the number of offences that have a presumption against bail. The changes followed a review of the bail system after it was revealed Dimitrious Gargasoulas had been granted bail just days before he drove his car along the Bourke Street mall, killing six and injuring more than 30 people. Ms Barson says these changes are also separating hundreds of women and children from their families unnecessarily. “Nine out of every 10 women now entering prisons are behind bars not because they have been found guilty of an offence, but because the Andrews government’s bail laws are extreme and treat poverty as a crime,” Ms Barson says.

About 90 per cent of all women entering prison in 2017 went into remand. About 70 per cent of these women had children. Many female prisoners have been victims of trauma and abuse: a quarter have been homeless, 65 per cent have been a victim of family violence. About 60 per cent used drugs daily before they were incarcerated, according to a new report from Corrections Victoria. The first time Christina went to prison, for aggravated burglary charges, she was on remand for her five-month sentence, she says. But the drug and alcohol unit was accessible only to sentenced prisoners. During her second stint in prison, authorities decided she was unsuitable for the program because she had an acquired brain impairment from ice use. Each time she left prison, she went straight back to ice and heroin, feeding her habit with theft and sex work. And Christina was in a terrible state. She weighed 47 kilograms, rarely slept, and crashed in between binges at the notorious Gatwick Hotel in St Kilda.

Megan Pearce, of the Darebin Community Legal Centre, is managing a new project called Women Transforming Justice to provide support to women who are seeking to be released on bail. About half of the women who are remanded don’t apply for bail. Pearce says this is often because they can’t get quick access to the supports they need, such as housing, or are advised that they don’t have good prospects. The fact the women’s prison population increase eclipses the men’s is damning, says Pearce. “It tells us about the gendered basis of women’s incarceration,” she says. Women disproportionately experience the drives of incarceration, like mental health issues, drug use related to trauma, homelessness and poverty, she says. A spokesperson for the Victorian government said it continued to invest in programs that support women who come into the corrections system, so they don’t reoffend: “We’ve made the biggest investment in the Aboriginal Justice Agreement in Victoria’s history, to reduce the unacceptable over-representation of Aboriginal people in our justice system.”

During her third and most recent sentence – two years for aggravated burglary – Christina opted to remain in prison during her parole period until she had secured a place, entirely through her own efforts, in a rehabilitation program outside, which had a six-month waiting period. “I literally got the prison chaplain to drive me straight to rehab,” she says. Along with Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, she credits the program for the past 15 months she has been clean. Christina became a Muslim in prison and now wears the hijab, an act of “self-care” that she says makes her feel safe and protected after a lifetime of abuse. She has reconciled with her parents, is completing a diploma in counselling and wants to start a degree in social work. She has many scars on her body from assaults, suicide attempts and infections caused by drug use. But she sees herself in a different way. Muslim. Student. Daughter. Survivor. * Not her real name