Transcending Colonial Legacies: From Criminal Justice to Indigenous Women’s Healing

This chapter explores how institutional inter-generational trauma is perpetuated by criminal justice interventions into the lives of Indigenous women. We illustrate how past and present colonial policies and practices have shaped Indigenous women’s lives and resulted in disproportionate incarceration across welfare and penal domains. The chapter then examines the ways in which the criminal justice system characterises trauma to problematise and pathologise Indigenous women. It implores a paradigm shift from prisons to healing places that are nurtured by and for Indigenous women. It illustrates practices of healing, well-being and self-determination models embedded in Indigenous women’s organisations and services