Debbie Kilroy

{{Short description|Australian human rights activist and prison reformer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}} {{use Australian English|date=October 2021}} {{Infobox person | name =  | image =  | alt =  | caption = | birth_name = Deborah Harding | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1961}} | birth_place = Brisbane, Queensland, Australia | death_date =  | death_place = | nationality =  | education =. University of Queensland | occupation = Human rights activist, prison reformer, lawyer | years_active = 1992–present | known_for = Founder of Sisters Inside | spouse = Joe Kilroy | notable_works = | website = {{url|https://www.sistersinside.com.au/}} }} '''Debbie Kilroy''' {{post-nominals|country=AUS|OAM}} (born 1961), née '''Deborah Harding''', is an Australian human rights activist and prison reformer. She is known for having founded Sisters Inside, an independent community organisation based in Queensland, Australia, that advocates for the human rights of women and girls in the criminal legal system. She is a qualified lawyer, who in 2007 was the first person with serious convictions to be allowed to practise law by the Supreme Court of Queensland.

==Early life and education== Deborah<ref name=costi>{{cite web| url=https://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/sme-law/30618-meeting-the-woman-who-went-from-jailbird-to-legal-eagle| website= Lawyers Weekly| title=Meeting the woman who went from jailbird to legal eagle| date=9 February 2021 |first=Stefanie|last=Costi| access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref> Harding<ref name=wmoa>{{cite web | title=Debbie Kilroy | series=Her Story | website=Women's Museum of Australia | date=4 January 2017 | url=https://wmoa.com.au/collection/herstory-archive/kilroy | access-date=26 October 2021 | archive-date=26 October 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211026053958/https://wmoa.com.au/collection/herstory-archive/kilroy | url-status=dead }}</ref> was born in 1961 in Brisbane, and raised in the suburb of Kedron, Queensland. During her teens, she became rebellious, and, after being locked up at the age of 14 for a four-week psychiatric assessment, began a period of increasing criminalisation and imprisonment, with only brief periods out of the criminal justice system during her teens. Witnessing and being a victim of injustices within the system, her early experiences with it made her angry.<ref name=womensreg>{{cite web | first=Suzi|last= Quixley | title=Kilroy, Debbie (1961- )| website=The Australian Women's Register | date=21 November 2019| quote=Created 4 May 2016, last modified 21 November 2019| url=http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE5644b.htm |publisher= University of Melbourne and National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW)| access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref>

She had a child at the age of 18, and endured a violent relationship for some years. After leaving that relationship she met and in 1986 married her present husband, rugby league footballer Joe Kilroy, and they had a child together. Debbie was sentenced to six years in prison<ref name=womensreg/> after having sold cannabis to undercover police.<ref name=costi/>

In 1990, she witnessed her friend Debbie Dick being murdered in the overcrowded Boggo Road Gaol,<ref name=robertson2017>{{cite web | last=Robertson | first=Joshua | title=Time served: how Debbie Kilroy went from jail to advising the government on sentencing | website=The Guardian | date=4 January 2017 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jan/04/time-served-how-debbie-kilroy-went-from-jail-to-advising-the-government-on-sentencing | access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref> and has said that "[her] commitment to fight against the criminalisation and imprisonment of women is in honour of her memory and the memories of all the women and girls who have died at the hands of the prison industrial complex". As a result of this murder, the prison authorities started involving prisoners in committees that helped to run the prison.<ref name=costi/>

During the three years that she served of her sentence before her release in 1992, she began training as a social worker through the University of Queensland, determined to improve the situation of women and children in prison.<ref name=womensreg/><ref name=robertson2017/>

==Sisters Inside==  Upon her release from prison in 1992, Kilroy started to establish Sisters Inside, an organisation dedicated to responding to the needs and human rights of criminalised women and the children affected by their imprisonment that were not being met by available services. At first Sisters Inside was a small group run mostly by volunteers, but it has grown into a larger community-based organisation providing a range of services to many women and children in Queensland.<ref name=womensreg/> Author Melissa Lucashenko is a founding member.<ref>{{cite web | title=Too Much Lip · | website=Stella | date=23 August 2021 | url=https://thestellaprize.com.au/prize/2019-prize/too-much-lip/ | access-date=11 February 2024 | archive-date=5 March 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190305050759/https://thestellaprize.com.au/prize/2019-prize/too-much-lip/ | url-status=dead }}</ref>

The motto of Sisters Inside is "nothing about us without us".<ref name=shedefined/>

==Career== Kilroy completed her legal training as well as a Graduate Diploma in Forensic Mental Health (she is trained in gestalt therapy<ref name=wmoa/>), and in 2017 was the first former prisoner to be admitted as a legal practitioner by the Supreme Court of Queensland,<ref name=womensreg/> a decision ruled by Justice Paul de Jersey, future chief justice and later governor of Queensland.<ref name=robertson2017/>

She opened her own legal practice in 2013.<ref>{{cite web | title=Debbie Kilroy | website=The Wheeler Centre | date=24 April 2019 | url=https://www.wheelercentre.com/people/debbie-kilroy | access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref>

Kilroy has served as an Executive Member of the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties since 2001 and ex-officio chairperson of the Youth Affairs Network of Queensland since 1997 ({{as of|2019}}). She has also served a member of a number of other bodies and organisations, including:<ref name=womensreg/> {{div col|colwidth=20em}} *the Criminal Law Committee; *Law Council of Australia *Criminal Law Committee, Queensland Law Society *Equal Rights Alliance *Australian Women Again Violence Alliance *National Coronial Reform, Federation of Community Legal Centres *Criminal Justice Network {{div col end}}

She has been appointed to state and national working groups on a range of legal and social issues, and has also contributed to international forums, such as meetings convened by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to develop draft UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-Custodial Measures for Women Offenders; sessions of the Commission on the Status of Women; and conferences on crime prevention and criminal justice.<ref name=womensreg/>

In November 2016 Kilroy was appointed to Queensland's Sentencing Advisory Council.<ref>{{cite web | title=Palaszczuk Government names members of reinstated Sentencing Advisory Council | website=Queensland Government | date=10 November 2016 | url=https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/79314 | access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref> She believes that the council has an important role to play in educating the public, to counteract the "law-and-order hysteria" seen in the media and spruiked by politicians.<ref name=robertson2017/>

In early 2019, she led a crowd-funding campaign called #freeher to pay off the court debts of Indigenous women in Western Australia who had been imprisoned for defaulting on fines, raising over {{AUD|400,000}} and enabling the release of 11 women.<ref name=ausstory/><ref>{{cite web | last=Griffiths | first=Emma | title=Anti-jail campaigner Debbie Kilroy's push to stop women being imprisoned for unpaid fines | website=ABC News| publisher= Australian Broadcasting Corporation | date=3 June 2019 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-03/debbie-kilroys-push-to-stop-prison-for-unpaid-fines/11035650 | access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref> Amendments to the WA legislation were passed in 2020, partly as result of the recommendation from the coronial inquiry into the death of Ms Dhu, who died in police custody.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/McGowan/2020/06/Parliament-passes-comprehensive-reform-package-to-WAs-fine-enforcement-regime.aspx| title=Parliament passes comprehensive reform package to WA's fine enforcement regime [media statement]| first=John| last=Quigley| author-link=John Quigley (politician)| publisher=Government of Western Australia| date=17 June 2020| access-date=26 October 2021| archive-date=26 October 2021| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211026110835/https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/McGowan/2020/06/Parliament-passes-comprehensive-reform-package-to-WAs-fine-enforcement-regime.aspx| url-status=dead}}</ref>

In April 2020 Kilroy contracted COVID-19 after travelling to the United States with her friend and colleague Boneeta-Marie Mabo, with both becoming so unwell that they were admitted to hospital.<ref>{{cite web | last=Jenkins | first=Keira | title=After recovering from COVID-19, Debbie Kilroy wants prisons to be 'cleaned out' | website=NITV | date=15 April 2020 | url=https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2020/04/15/after-recovering-covid-19-debbie-kilroy-wants-prisons-be-cleaned-out | access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref> Around 18 months of contracting the virus, in September 2021, she was still suffering from Long COVID, with a debilitating range of symptoms.<ref>{{cite web | last=McPherson | first=Emily | title='Ongoing nightmare': Aussie woman shares warning 18 months after contracting COVID-19 | website=9News | date=15 September 2021 | url=https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-aussie-lawyer-debbie-kilroy-shares-covid19-warning-18-months-after-infection/db399283-de7d-4839-a1b4-bc1a2ea6869d | access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref>

{{as of|2021}} she is principal of the law firm Kilroy & Callaghan, where she leads a team of five, and CEO of Sisters Inside. She is passionate about encouraging former offenders, and in particular Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and culturally diverse women to become criminal lawyers.<ref name=costi/>

==Beliefs and advocacy== Kilroy's experience of imprisonment led to her belief that unnecessary trauma caused by the prison system, including solitary confinement as a punishment for self-harm, leads to a greater likelihood of women re-offending and ending up back in prison.<ref name=costi/> Influenced by people such as the US academic, activist and former prisoner Angela Davis, Kilroy believes that the prison system fails in its mission to punish and rehabilitate, with more than half of women released from prison returning to spend another stint there.<ref name=robertson2017/> She names two other former prisoners as heroes of hers: Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi<ref>{{cite interview | last=Kilroy| first=Debbie | title=Leadership Interview - Debbie Kilroy OAM | website=ourcommunity.com.au |date=October 2010| url=https://www.ourcommunity.com.au/leadership/leadership_article.jsp?articleId=4713| access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref>

She has said that there is a need to break down "racism, misogyny and sexism within the legal frameworks", and that harsher sentences are not the answer.<ref name=robertson2017/> She points out that "The vast majority of women prisoners are imprisoned for minor, non-violent crimes... [which] are often poverty-related", with around 40% being onremand, as yet untried for their alleged crimes. She says:<ref name=shedefined>{{cite web | title=Sisters Inside: How Debbie Kilroy went from prisoner to protector of women's rights | website=She Defined | date=7 March 2021 | url=https://shedefined.com.au/international-womens-day/sisters-inside-how-debbie-kilroy-went-from-prisoner-to-protector-of-womens-rights/ | access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref> {{blockquote|Too often women are imprisoned on remand for failures of the state. Failure to provide adequate income support, to support women leaving violent homes, to provide essential housing and health services, and to address multigenerational harm arising from colonisation.}}

She engages in public debate and advocates for women on a range of issues, including violence, homelessness, racism, mental health, substance abuse, poverty, child protection, sexual assault, and failures in government systems. She aims to reduce the rate of criminalisation and imprisonment of women and children, in particular the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander within the criminal justice system, and to women reduce the impact of mothers' imprisonment on their children.<ref name=womensreg/>

==Recognition== * 2003: Order of Australia Medal<ref name=womensreg/> * 2004: Australian Human Rights Medal<ref name=womensreg/> * 2010: Emergent Woman Lawyer of the Year<ref name=womensreg/> * 2010: Peace Women Award<ref name=womensreg/> * 2014: Churchill Fellowship<ref name=womensreg/> * 2016: shortlisted Queensland nomination for Australian of the Year<ref name=womensreg/> * 2019: keynote speaker at the Law Institute of Victoria's Women in Leadership lunch<ref>{{cite web | title=Sisters Inside's Debbie Kilroy and former Justice Betty King headline LIV Women in Leadership event | website=Law Institute of Victoria | date=23 September 2016 | url=https://www.liv.asn.au/Staying-Informed/Media-Releases/Media-Releases/June-2019/Sisters-Inside%E2%80%99s-Debbie-Kilroy-and-former-Justice- | access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref> * 2019: Voltaire Human Rights Award<ref>{{cite web | title=Voltaire Award Dinner 2019 | website=Liberty Victoria | date=27 July 2019 | url=https://libertyvictoria.org.au/content/voltaire-award-dinner-2019 | access-date=26 October 2021 | archive-date=26 October 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211026121729/https://libertyvictoria.org.au/content/voltaire-award-dinner-2019 | url-status=dead }}</ref>

==In media and the arts==

* ''Australian Story'' on ABC Television (2004<ref name=womensreg/> and 2019)<ref name=ausstory>{{cite web | title=Lady Justice | website=Australian Broadcasting Corporation| series= Australian Story | date=3 June 2019 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/austory/lady-justice/11169336 | access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref> * ''Kilroy was Here'', a biography by Kristina Olsson (2005)<ref>{{cite book | last=Olsson | first=Kristina | title=Kilroy was Here | publisher=Transworld Publishing | year=2005 | isbn=978-1-86325-447-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n9tR3AqcJpoC | access-date=26 October 2021 | page=}}</ref> * Archibald Prize entry (2005) and portrait by Ai Wei Wei (2015)<ref name=womensreg/> * ''The Drum'' on ABC Television<ref name=drum2019>{{cite web | last=Gleeson | first=Hayley | title=Debbie Kilroy's friend was murdered in front of her in jail. Now she's freeing other women | website=ABC News | date=15 February 2019 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-15/debbie-kilroy-fight-of-her-life/10802538 | access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==Further reading== *{{cite web | last=Gleeson | first=Hayley | title=Debbie Kilroy's friend was murdered in front of her in jail. Now she's freeing other women | website=ABC News| publisher= Australian Broadcasting Corporation | date=15 February 2019 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-15/debbie-kilroy-fight-of-her-life/10802538}} *{{cite web | title=From little things |first= Kristina |last=Olsson| author-link=Kristina Olsson | website=Inside Story | date=8 August 2019 | url=https://insidestory.org.au/from-little-things/| quote=This essay first appeared in ''Griffith Review 65: Crimes and Punishments''.}} *{{cite web| url=https://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/252080/sub1196-mental-health.pdf| title=Sisters Inside Submission to the Productivity Commission Mental Health Draft Report |date=February 2020| author=Sisters Inside}}

==External links== *{{official|https://www.sistersinside.com.au/|Sisters Inside}} *[https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/61SLQ_INST/dls06p/alma99183850921102061 Debbie Kilroy OAM: Dangerous Women podcast series], State Library of Queensland

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kilroy, Debbie}} Category:1961 births Category:Living people Category:Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Australia Category:Australian Indigenous rights activists Category:Australian women human rights activists Category:Prison reformers