Orange is the New Black: The Australian Reality

Since 2005, the number of women in prisons in Australia has risen by 65%.

In Australia, Indigenous women account for less than 3% of the population but more than one third of the prison population.

These statistics are a harsh reality for some Australian women, their families and their children, many of whom spend their entire childhood without a mother and wind up in prison themselves as a result.

Piper Kerman spent 13 months in prison in the United States for felony and money laundering charges. Before going to prison, Piper was a successful college graduate, who had grown up in Boston in a family of attorneys and doctors. Her experience, and the experiences of the women she met during her time in prison inspired Piper to write her 2008 memoir Orange is the New Black: My Time in a Women’s Prison. The memoir has since become the basis for the Emmy award winning Netflix series Orange is the New Black.

When Piper spoke at the All About Women Festival at the Opera House on Sunday 6 March 2016, she said that some of the African American women she met in prison were there for similar crimes, but served significantly longer sentences simply because of their socio-economic status and the colour of their skin. The US statistics, much like the Australian figures, verify the inconsistency in judicial treatment depending on race and class.

Why are there so many more women in prison now compared to 10 years ago? And why are such disproportionately high numbers of indigenous women incarcerated in Australia?

These issues lie at the core of increasing female imprisonment rates, but are not being addressed.

When women are sentenced to prison, they are often suffering from mental illness, substance abuse and/or are the victims of physical and sexual abuse.

Piper said that to address these issues we need to start looking at the rising incarceration rates of women and Indigenous people in Australia as a public health issue. There needs to be greater support for those most at risk of incarceration in our community and we need to intervene in violence earlier to prevent the cycles of abuse that lead these women down the path to imprisonment.

Finally, the point Piper made that hit home the hardest for me: when these women do emerge from prison, we need to start judging them not by what they were capable of doing on their worst day, but what they are capable of achieving on their best.