Our response to “tougher bail laws” announcement by the Victorian Government today.
Today’s “tougher bail laws” announcement by the Victorian Government will expand Victoria’s prisons and entrench a pathway to incarceration and deaths in custody.
This second tranche of the Allan Government’s so-called “bail reforms” will introduce a harsher bail test and “2 strike” policy, and expand the prison system, adding nearly 1000 additional adult prison beds, and 88 extra beds in cells in the Cherry Creek youth prison.
These latest reforms are a prison expansion package that will see large numbers of people funnelled into Victoria’s prisons. Every new restriction on bail means more people locked away from community, housing, and support. And more people locked up means more preventable deaths in custody.
It is clear who will harmed by these kneejerk reforms. Victoria’s women’s prisons are already overwhelmingly filled with First Nations Women, survivors of family and sexual violence, people who are experiencing homelessness and housing precarity
The evidence is consistent and overwhelming: Safer communities are not those with more prisons, but those with safe, secure housing, access to healthcare, community-led, culturally safe, peer-based support.
Flat Out has supported women and gender-diverse people impacted by the criminal legal system for more than 35 years. Through our daily work, we see clearly what makes a difference in people’s lives and make communities safer— and it’s not more surveillance, policing, or punitive bail laws.
We have already seen the harm of the first tranche of reforms. Incarceration rates are rising. More people are being locked up in prisons that cause deep and lasting damage
Just yesterday, the inquest into the death of Heather Calgaret — a proud Yamatji, Noongar, Wongi and Pitjantjatjara woman — found that her death in custody at the Dame Phyllis Frost women’s prison was preventable. These are not isolated tragedies; they are part of a systemic pattern of targeting, incarceration and harm against Aboriginal women.
This disastrous backflip by the Allan Government on their prior commitments to evidence-based bail reforms and to implementing the findings from coronial inquests to prevent further Aboriginal deaths in custody. These laws will not make our communities safer — they will put more lives at risk.
“Every time the Allan Government talks about ‘the broader community,’ it’s drawing a line, deciding whose safety matters, and whose doesn’t. These bail laws don’t make us safer. They punish the same people who are already most at risk of homelessness, criminalisation, and dying behind bars.” said Sheena Colquhoun, Chair of the Flat Out Board.
We’ll be on the steps of Parliament tomorrow to say no to bad bail laws. Say no to prison expansion.
When: Wednesday 30 July, 9:30am
Where: Steps of Parliament House, Spring Street, Victoria