ESSAY LAURA BURFITT INTERN @ TOP END WOMEN’S LEGAL SERVICE
Discrimination against women in the Darwin Correctional Centre Author’s note: The term ‘Aboriginal’ has been used in this essay to refer to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This term has been chosen due to the word limit and also in recognition of the fact that many Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory dislike the use of the term ‘Indigenous’ and the acronym ‘ATSI’. When referring to victim/ survivors of domestic and family violence, both ‘victim’ and ‘survivor’ are used.
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LAW SOCIETY NT BALANCE EDITION 2|21
Introduction Women are the fastest growing cohort of Australia’s prison population. The number of women in Australian prisons has increased by 43 per cent in the past 10 years.1 For Aboriginal women, this increase is even higher at 74 per cent.2 The criminogenic profile of women prisoners is significantly different from men. Perhaps the most important difference is the level of complex trauma owing to a history of domestic and family violence (DFV).3 The focus of this essay is women’s experiences of DFV and the need for specialist DFV counselling in women’s prisons. The locus of this essay is Sector 4 at the Darwin Correctional Centre (DCC), that is, the women’s area.
Building on the extensive work undertaken by the Top End Women’s Legal Service Inc. (TEWLS), this essay considers the availability of discrimination protections for women prisoners in Sector 4 with the view to advocate for an independent, specialist DFV counsellor. Part I provides an overview of the Northern Territory (NT) context, establishes the issue of DFV related trauma and its prevalence among women prisoners and outlines the work undertaken by TEWLS to date. Part II offers an alternative approach to statutory protections by considering political advocacy as a potential avenue to secure a DFV counsellor. Parts III and IV look at the discrimination protections available under NT and Commonwealth legislation respectively. Quotes included in the essay are from the women prisoners in Sector 4.
