Violent Times

Indigenous Incarceration Is a Form of Systemic Violence

01.25.2019 - By VICE AustraliaPlay

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Indigenous Australians are the most incarcerated people on earth. They make up 2 percent of the general population, but a staggering 34 percent of the female prison population. Studies have explained this startling statistic through the experience of violence: the majority of Indigenous female prisoners are survivors of family and other violence.

In this episode of Violent Times we meet Vickie Roach, a Yuin woman, academic, and prison abolitionist. She explores the relationship between the systemic inequality and domestic violence that has led to the soaring incarceration rate. It's a subject she understands deeply having spent the last three decades in and out of prison. During her last stretch she acquired a Masters degree, and successfully mounted a High Court challenge against the government's ban on all prisoners voting in elections.

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