A coronial inquest into the death of an Indigenous woman in a Victorian prison will shine a spotlight on the state’s punitive new bail laws for the first time.
The Andrews government amended the state’s bail laws in 2017 and 2019, heralding the changes as making it the “most onerous” bail scheme in the country.
The changes made a wider range of offences subject to a “reverse onus” provision where the presumption is against bail, and have led to a drastic increase in the number of people in prison on remand.
The Andrews government’s reforms have meant that individuals facing a number of minor charges such as shoplifting face the same standard for bail as those accused of murder.
While they were introduced in the wake of the Bourke Street attack, the laws have disproportionately impacted women and Indigenous Australians and have led to a significant increase in Victoria’s prison population, with a huge amount of the people in prisons yet to be found guilty of a crime.
These harsh bail laws will be scrutinised for the first time next years as part of the coronial inquest into the death of Veronica Marie Nelson, a 37-year-old Indigenous woman who died at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Victoria early last year,
Nelson died at the prison, the only maximum security facility for women in the state, in January 2020 after she was arrested for shoplifting charges in late 2019 and denied bail. She was placed in the prison on remand, and died in her cell just three days later.
The Coroners Court held a directions hearing for the inquest this week, and has pushed back the start date until late April next year.
The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service’s (VALS) Wirraway team is representing Nelson’s partner of 22 years Percy Lovett at the inquest.
VALS CEO Nerita Waight said the inquest is an important opportunity to examine the devastating impact of the Andrews government’s bail changes.
“The ability to examine this will hopefully result in justice, not just for Veronica Nelson but for all people unfairly criminalised due to this ridiculous change,” Waight said.
“It’s incredibly heartbreaking that often when it comes to making changes to tough on crime policies it necessitates the death of a person, and most often it’s an Aboriginal person. That’s where we’re at at the moment.”
The Andrews government reforms to the state’s bail laws have made a broad swathe of offences to be subject to the “reverse onus” position when an individual is applying for bail, making it significantly harder to not be remanded in custody before trial.
These reforms led to a sharp increase in the Victorian prison population, a trend that was only reversed by a global pandemic. All signs point to the reduction in prison numbers in 2020 being a blip on the radar.
In February 2020, just under 40 percent of all prisoners in the state were un-sentenced, compared to 19 percent a decade ago. From 2010 to 2020, the number of women entering prisons on average each month increased by three times, driven by a drastic increase in the number of people on remand.
The bail laws have had a devastating impact on Aboriginal women specifically, Waight said, and have led to many women like Nelson being imprisoned for minor offences like shoplifting.
Aboriginal women now make up 13 percent of Victoria’s prison population, but only 1 percent of the general public. Nine out of 10 women in prison haven’t been found guilty of a crime, and have instead been refused bail under the tough new laws.
“The Victorian bail laws have been amended time and time again in a way that makes it virtually impossible for people to obtain bail, even for the simplest charges like shoplifting,” Waight said.
“That then puts them in custody, and these people are often parents who are then locked up and detained and their children go without parents. The bail laws have far more reaching consequences than just putting someone in prison - it can often be a life sentence and lead to the destruction of a family.”
Despite calls for the government to make bail more accessible dating back 30 years to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the Victorian government has continually done the opposite.
“These laws are hurting marginalised communities - Aboriginal, queer, gender diverse, women - it’s criminalising them,” Waight said.
“More and more people end up on remand and in practice and in effect these punitive bail laws are incarcerated mothers and separating them from children and risking the involvement of child services.”
The inquest into the death of Veronica Nelson will also look at “serious deficiencies” in the quality of healthcare in Victorian prisons, VALS said. On Nelson’s final night in the prison, she was distressed and cried out for medical assistance on multiple occasions, but died alone in her jail cell, the organisation said.
Lovett, Nelson’s partner of more than two decades, has issued a statement ahead of the coronial inquiry.
“I don’t want it to happen again. I want to make it easier for the next women who get locked up,” Lovett said. “I want them to be looked after more. I want them to get more support and treatment in the community.
“I want everyone to know why and how they went wrong and didn’t do the job they were supposed to do. I want people to know, because she was a strong woman. I want accountability. I want Veronica to be heard.”
Denham Sadler is a freelance journalist based in Melbourne. He covers politics and technology regularly for InnovationAus, and writes about other issues, including criminal justice, for publications including The Guardian and The Saturday Paper. He is also the senior editor of The Justice Map, a project to strengthen advocacy for criminal justice reform in Australia. You can follow him on Twitter.
Support quality journalism.
As an inkl member you can directly support the work of journalists like Denham Sadler, while also getting access to 100+ publications like Foreign Affairs, The Independent, The Economist, Financial Times and Bloomberg.
As part of our commitment to building a sustainable future for journalism, a portion of your monthly inkl membership fee will go directly to Denham for as long as you remain a subscriber.
BECOME A MEMBER
