Women in Transition: From Prison to…

Abstract

Over the past twenty years there has been significant development in theories and perspectives driving post-release (re-entry) approaches and work. On the whole, as with most other criminal justice theories and frameworks, these have been informed by the male experience of prison and release and have been imported to the Australian context largely from the United Kingdom and North America. These theoretical frames, like desistance, and approaches like throughcare and addressing criminogenic needs are then imposed upon women's transitional, post-release lives. These generalised approaches also, almost entirely, ignore the majority of women prisoners because they do not address very short sentence and remand prisoners; the large number of women with combined and multiple mental health and substance abuse disorders and cognitive disability; or the marginal space from which most come and to which most return. This article reflects critically on these imposed approaches in Australia and New South Wales (NSW) as they apply to women and brings suggestions from the ground up, using new work on the expressed needs and experiences of Aboriginal women prisoners, as well as other work on women being released from prison in Australia.