CAMILLA'S TALE OF WOE SETS OFF A SEARCH FOR HELP

The story of the "beautiful woman, tall and Amazonian", who died in Carmel
Benjamin's arms less than three years after she was released from prison is
kept in a box. Her name was Camilla.

The box contains Camilla's case-notes, about how she slipped into the
justice system at the age of 14 and never really came out. After she was
released from prison for the last time, her boyfriend - a courier - started
sending her packages of drugs. She contracted hepatitis B and eventually
died an unpretty death in St Vincent's Hospital. Camilla was in her late 20s.

Since 1987, at least 120 women have died after their release from prison,
overwhelmingly of drug-related causes, and it was reported earlier this
year that seven women died soon after their release in the 10 weeks before
Christmas. All but one died of a heroin overdose.

It is a matter of deep concern to Ms Benjamin, the chairwoman of the
Victorian Women's Prison Council, who is trying to establish a mentoring
scheme to help ease women back into the community after their release. She
and Vicki Fraser, Victoria's former senior community police officer who now
runs programs with women in Victorian jails, strongly advocated the
decriminalisation of drug abuse.

Rather than locking up women for drug-related crimes, Ms Fraser said,
resources should be poured into helping women develop resilience and
survival skills outside prison. "That would be a true diversionary
program," she told a council seminar on post-release survival.

The seminar heard that corrections systems all over the world needed to
rethink the way they imprisoned women. Ms Benjamin said almost 70 per cent
of female prisoners were jailed for non-violent crimes, but the
overwhelming majority had drug addictions.

"Prison is so destructive to women in particular and the effect
reverberates through families and the community in a way that it doesn't so
much for men," she said.

Victorian Corrections Commissioner Penny Armytage acknowledged at the
seminar that post-release mortality was a serious problem and said the
Justice Department was in the process of developing ways to ease the fear
and loneliness that strikes women when they leave jail. One proposal was a
20-bed transitional facility to be located in metropolitan Melbourne.

Better bail advocacy and ways of maintaining relationships with family and
friends while in jail were also being explored, she said.

Victoria's Chief Magistrate, Michael Adams, QC, said it was crucial that
adequate supported accommodation was available for everybody after they
left prison and that women who had been in jail felt they had a voice with
judges and magistrates.

The council wants to attract concerned members of the community and train
them to become mentors.