Cell, street, repeat

Why are Australian prisons releasing thousands of women into homelessness?

PRIMER, 2024

On the cool May afternoon that Gloria Larman pulled up to Silverwater Prison in Sydney, the wheels of justice were turning especially slowly. Larman, a community worker and the chief executive of the Women’s Justice Network (WJN), was there to collect Tania*, a woman scheduled for release at 4pm. But an hour later, there was still no sign of her.

As the light faded and the air cooled, Larman grew anxious. Tania, a drug user recently granted release, was meant to go straight to a rehabilitation centre - one with a strict 8pm curfew. If she didn't make it, she'd have nowhere to sleep. So, Larman hit the phones, worked her contacts and  eventually secured a bed for the night in emergency accommodation. When Tania finally emerged, Larman drove her straight there, promising to deliver her to rehab the next morning.

If Larman hadn’t been there – if Tania, a drug addict, had been released alone and homeless into the night – the evening could have unfolded very differently.

“She would have gone across the road and bought a bottle of alcohol and then been back in custody,” says Larman. “She would have been totally stuffed.”

That same evening, Larman had witnessed a scene that might have been Tania's fate. Another young woman, perhaps in her early twenties, had stepped hesitantly out of the prison gates. She was dressed in thongs and no jumper, despite the chill. No one was there to meet her.

“I felt so sorry for her," Larman says. "It was a really cold night. I would have taken her to the station, but we couldn’t leave because we were waiting for our client. It was heartbreaking.”