BY JIM MCILROY
BRISBANE — Sisters Inside, the organisation representing women in Queensland prisons, has launched a campaign against large-scale strip searching in the state's jails, according to SI co-ordinator Debbie Kilroy, addressing an August 14 Politics in the Pub forum in the Boundary Hotel, sponsored by the West End branch of Socialist Alliance.
The forum, chaired by SI staff member Peta Preston, also heard from Sisters Inside management committee member Anne Warner.
Warner said that because of the "law and order" campaign adopted by the major political parties, the number of women in Queensland prisons had increased from more than 100 in the early 1990s to 400-500 today, the highest national rate of increase of any state.
This is despite that fact that a community service order for offenders costs the taxpayer around $11,000 per year, while keeping a person in jail costs about $74,000 per annum.
Kilroy explained that "a history of physical or sexual abuse was involved in 98% of cases of women prisoners".
Sisters Inside has established a very successful program for reunification of mothers with children, after release. Some 85% of women prisoners are mothers, and issues relating to family problems are major concerns, she said.
Some 25% of women prisoners in Queensland are Aboriginal, a vastly greater proportion than the indigenous section of the general population — a testimony to the racist nature of the "justice system".
In discussion, there was general support at the forum for Socialist Alliance policies for a significant reduction in the number of people being incarcerated, for imprisonment to be used as a last resort; for spending money on welfare services, schools and hospitals, not new jails; and for an end to "law and order" policies such as mandatory sentencing and strip-searching.