The state’s perfect partner
This week's posts are being sourced and moderated by the Antipoverty Centre (@antipovertycent) to spark thinking and discussion about poverty in Australia during Anti-Poverty Week. In today’s article, Gunditjmara woman Tabitha Lean reflects on the unending nature of a prison sentence on the day her parole ends. A story teller, poet, artist and abolition activist, she is blessed to have her mother's stories and the blood of all the women before her coursing through her veins. You can find her writings at The Revolution Ware. Follow her on Twitter via @haveachattabs
ACT I
‘Do the crime, do the time.’
At least that’s how the saying goes.
But like all sayings that trip off our tongue as easily as honey dripping off warm toast, they aren’t necessarily rooted in reality – and this particular one, well, trust me on this, it certainly does not pass the litmus test.
I was convicted of a crime and served a sentence of six years and eight months. According to the hallowed halls of justice, I have done the crime, and served my time. But what I didn’t realise is that the ‘time’ they speak of, is actually eternal. Yes! That ‘six year and eight month’ sentence is just the time they can legally cage me. What I should have feared as much as the monster beneath my bed, was the lifelong sentence they hold over me - and will until the end of time. Because the criminal record I am now furnished with has forever altered my dialogical relationship with the state, where their punishments become less about chains, cages and shackles and more administrative and covert.
I have swapped one shitty relationship for a new one, and this time the beast is insurmountable. It’s a fucking huge beast of burden. And on the eve of my freedom moment, I have looked in the mirror and I can see the otherwise invisible hands around my neck, and they belong to the state. The state is coercively controlling me, (and there’s not a single carceral white feminist in sight fighting for my emancipation!).
ACT II
Today, I get off parole and I am supposed to be free. I am supposed to be a fully functional member of society. I am supposed to be able to contribute to the world as a responsible citizen. This is what the state tells me I am supposed to do, and this is what you all as a community likely expect of me.
And I was ready.
I have two post graduate degrees – one I completed while incarcerated…but the reality is, I am not employable.
Nobody wants me.
In fact, for the past few weeks, I have been rejected from jobs that I was overqualified for – just because of my criminal record.
The first job I applied for was to work for the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) in the Constitutional Referendum. My application was initially accepted; after all, I had worked in electioneering many years before. I have a decade’s worth of experience in politics. I know how the process works, I know the rules, I probably have more experience than many other people the AEC were employing. Add to that, this was a referendum about Blak fullas, so it stood to reason they would want to employ as many Aboriginal people as they could, surely? However, despite all of these factors, I was rejected – rejected because of my criminal record. Side note, when I went to vote every face working at that booth was white except for my son, and the only reason he was working there was because I told him to apply, “because one person in this bloody family better make some bunda off of this shit show that is a referendum.”
The next blow came from the university sector. During my incarceration, I had been giving guest lectures in various schools of law and criminology, including social work and sociology. I have an Honours Degree and a Masters. I’m fairly good at lecturing and the students respond well to my content. I was booked to do an online lecture, at a university where I had lectured several times before. This time, however, a fortnight before the lecture, and after I had written the lecture content, I had to withdraw from the job, because I could not get a working with children check. Yep, the university where I had lectured previously (and safely I might add, with no adverse student interactions, so much so that I was invited back again), could not process my employment because I could not pass the necessary employment screenings.
Act III
Most incarcerated people come home. Some don’t. There are some that the system keeps, and some that the system kills. But for those of us who make it home, we should have the right to re-enter the community successfully. We should be able to access the legal economy or education, community-based resources, a place to call home, a sense of belonging and a purpose. We shouldn’t be locked out of labour markets, housing markets, and we shouldn’t be locked into poverty traps.
I know too well that there is policy after policy created for the criminal injustice space that run contradictory to policies targeting areas of social justice and equality. In my case, policies to remedy unemployment, poverty and inequality are undermined by legislation that permits the blanket use of criminal record screening in an ever-increasing number of spaces and places that have severely hampered my return to the ‘free’ world. And I am just one number, in a growing swell of criminalised people that this country holds captive.
The Final Act
Today is the day that I am released from parole.
I will be free, or as free as this colony will allow me to be. I thought this day would feel different. I thought I would feel like I was standing on the precipice of something monumental, but mostly I feel sad. Sadness and grief. Sadness about what has been, and grieving what could have been. I don’t feel hopeful for my future, all I feel is a sense of hopelessness. I feel locked into a perpetual cycle of punishment and pain, and all for what? Some kind of revenge for my wrongs?
Do you feel better? Do you sleep well at night knowing I have ‘paid the price’? After all, the punishment exacted upon me is done in your name. This is your brand of justice. This system exists to keep people like you safe from people like me.
Weirdly, though, I don’t feel dangerous. I have never felt dangerous. I feel broken and dishevelled.
I don’t feel whole. In fact, I don’t think I have ever felt like a whole person, and now I don’t think I ever will. Nor do I feel like I have ever had any power. I certainly have no power now, and likely never ever will. But I am restrained as if I ooze power from every pore. I have been contained so strenuously, it’s as if I was the hulk or something - as if with sheer might I could have broken free from the shackles that bound me (if only).
Postscript
I am not strong, powerful or whole.
I am just me.
Not whole. Not human. Just a little number.
Six digits to be exact.
#177057
Powerless, voiceless and disposable.
Just the way the state likes it.
Content moderator: Antipoverty Centre