Neither Seen Nor Heard: State-Sanctioned Violence Against Women Prisoners in Australia

Abstract

In prisons across Australia1, women are rendered socially and geographically invisible, with little accountability for how they are treated. These institutionalized settings replicate women’s previous experiences of violence, particularly domestic and family violence. Like violent partners, prison officers are free to arbitrarily demand women’s unquestioning obedience to directions (no matter how unreasonable) and impose punishment. Too often, strip-searching and solitary confinement – practices that amount to torture under the UN Convention Against Torture – are used to contain and control women prisoners. Most women leave prison retraumatized and at increased risk of sexual, domestic and systemic violence. This chapter explores the way in which the invisibility of prisons in Australia has been used to mask the harm they do to women with lived experience of violence, and their role in legitimizing and perpetuating violence against women. It includes a focus on the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women prisoners, who are by far the fastest-growing cohort of prisoners in Australia and who are particularly affected by violence in all its forms.