How Voice of Hope Makes a Difference
As the first dedicated service provider to Aboriginal Women both in prison and post release, Voice of Hope engages and encourages them. Running programs to assist Aboriginal women address substance abuse and trauma, Voice of Hope develops and implements holistic strategies, helping women to heal physically and spiritually.
Upon assisting Aboriginal women become whole again, they are enabled to reconnect with their families and adapt to life outside prison.
Voice of Hope will run programs to support women through the healing and transition phases particularly focussing on:
Contributing to closing the gap on Indigenous incarceration rates, health and life expectancy
Connecting women back to culture and with their children
Supporting families and the wider community
Assisting women empower themselves
Decreasing substance abuse
Changing negative thought patterns
Community Cost of the Incarceration of Aboriginal Women
The direct cost to taxpayers of incarcerating Aboriginal women is estimated at around $127,750 per prisoner each year, or $350 per day per prisoner. This does not consider the social and economic cost to the community of having these women away from their families, where they would otherwise be performing important parenting roles.
Where the primary carer of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child is in custody (whether on remand or sentenced), there is a heightened risk that child will be taken into the custody of the Department of Communities and placed in out-of-home care. Such outcomes are common while parents are in custody and continue after release where children’s parents are homeless.
The “Bringing Them Home Report” by the Australian Human Rights Commission in 1997 found that the effects on children of separation from the primary carer can have serious long-term consequences on children’s lives. When separation occurs at a young age, the result can be depression, trust and self-worth issues. These issues can manifest in later life with the choice of inappropriate partners, difficulties parenting their own children and unresolved trauma and grief.
This separation fractures families and produces children who are more likely to have disrupted education, poor health, and unstable housing. This ultimately creates conditions entrenching the cycle of disadvantage.
The Australian Medical Association in assessing health implications, expressed significant concern over the escalation in Indigenous incarceration rates in a 2015 report.
Interpreting the problem of Indigenous incarceration as symptomatic of the health disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, the report urged policy changes to address the rising incarceration rates and worsening health outcomes. It recognised the age standardised rate of incarceration for Indigenous Australians as 13 times that of non-Indigenous Australians and that the majority of Indigenous people in custody suffer from mental disorders.