PRISON ABOLITION/TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE
Moderated by The Resistance, this unmissable community seminar features the prominent voices in the Australian abolitionist movement. Join media researcher Dr Heather Anderson, human rights activist Debbie Kilroy OAM, Indigenous Rights campaigner Maggie Munn, and prison abolition advocate CJ in a conversation on what a society with transformative justice looks like.
Heather Anderson (she/her)
Heather Anderson has been involved in community radio since the early 90s, mostly at 4ZZZ in Meanjin/Brisbane but also in Tarntanya/Adelaide at WOW-FM. Heather volunteered with the radio show, Locked In, on 4ZZZ from 2004 to 2014, when she moved for a job at the University of South Australia. There she continued her prisoner radio work, both volunteering with the newly established Radio Seeds (presented by women of lived prison experience) and running audio production workshops in Mobilong Men's and Adelaide Women's Prison.
Her PhD looked at community radio and prisoner audiences, and she is on the advisory board for Prison Radio International as well as a founding member of the Prisoner Radio Network, Australia. She is now back in Meanjin and happily making a nuisance of herself at 4ZZZ once more!
Debbie Kilroy (she/her)
Debbie Kilroy OAM is one of Australia’s leading advocates for protecting the human rights of women and children through decarceration – the process of moving away from using prisons and other systems of social control in response to crime and social issues. Debbie’s passion for justice is the result of her personal experience of the criminal (in)justice system and an unwavering belief that prison represents a failure of justice. She is the CEO of Sisters Inside a leading organisation that supports criminalised women, girls and families in South-East Queensland and Townsville region.
Maggie Munn (they/them)
Maggie Munn is a Gunggari gambi from south-west Queensland, but is based in Meanjin. They are the Lead Campaigner for Indigenous Rights at Amnesty International Australia. Maggie studied law at university, and has been involved in grassroots advocacy and activism for a long time. Maggie's work is focused on the Community is Everything campaign which is working towards ending the over-representation of First Nations People in the criminal justice system. They are interested particularly in the abolition of police and the prison industrial complex, decolonising advocacy and activism and what accountability looks like without relying on the criminal justice system in its current form.
Find CJ on social media at @gonechocco
CJ (she/her)
CJ is a current co-host on 4zzz's Locked In program which provides a 2 hour space each week for letters and song requests from prisoners in SEQ jails. CJ's 25 year career at the intersections of art, communication and technology, and 45 years on the earth as a natural born agitator, have contributed to her unique feminist perspective. Kicked out of Sunday School at 7 for asking too many questions, CJ is no stranger to ignoring the status quo and creating space for the 'underdog'. Launching the first adult entertainment website in the world for cis-het women back in 1998, she was never satisfied with the advice regularly given by her elders to 'know your place'. She continues to use her privilege to take up space and works to create a place for every human, especially the ones who don't 'know their place'.
The Resistance
The Resistance is a community organisation led by and centering women, non-binary + gender non-conforming people of colour—focussed on radical political education and building community on and around Yuggera/Yugambeh land in Logan (QLD).