Debbie Kilroy was first criminalized at the age of 13, and spent over two decades in and out of children’s and women’s prisons. Driven to end the criminalization and imprisonment of girls and women, Debbie established Sisters Inside, as well as her law firm, Kilroy & Callaghan Lawyers. An unapologetic abolitionist, Debbie’s activism work centres on dismantling the Prison Industrial Complex, and all forms of carceral control and exile. With a firm belief that there should be “nothing about us without us”, Debbie established the National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls to centre the voices, experiences and aspirations of criminalized and imprisoned women and girls to change the face of justice in the place they call Australia.
Tabitha Lean
Tabitha Lean (or as her ancestors know her, Budhin Mingaan) is a Gunditjmara woman who was born and raised on Kaurna yerta. Having spent almost two years in Adelaide Women’s Prison and a total of 18 months on Home Detention before and after the jail experience, she argues that the criminal punishment system is a brutal and often deadly colonial frontier for her people. Now committed to working towards total abolition of the prison industrial complex, Tabitha believes that until we abolish the system and redefine community, health, safety and justice her people will not be safe. Tabitha is a storyteller, poet, abolition activist and links to her writing can be found here: https://www.therevolutionware.com/published-work
