Vickie Roach

Vickie Roach
Born
Vickie Lee Roach

1958 (age 67–68)
Merewether, New South Wales, Australia
EducationSwinburne University of Technology, M.Writing
OccupationActivist

Vickie Lee Roach (born 1958) is an Aboriginal Australian activist. She is a Yuin woman. She was the plaintiff in the landmark Australian High Court case Roach v Electoral Commissioner. At the time of the case, she was serving a six-year term in prison. Since her release, she has become an advocate for prison abolition.

Early life and criminal convictions

Vickie Lee Roach was born in 1958 in Merewether, New South Wales.[1][2] She is a member of the Yuin people,[2] an Aboriginal group whose Country is located on the South Coast of New South Wales.[3] In 1961, at the age of two, she was charged with neglect, removed from her mother's care and placed with a non-Indigenous foster family.[4][2]

Roach left the foster system at 13,[2] following which she had numerous criminal convictions. She had 125 convictions or guilty verdicts recorded against her from 1976 to 2003, "[n]inety-nine percent" of which she classifies as "crimes of survival or disobedience".[2][5]

On 14 December 2002, Roach and her partner robbed a milk bar in Mordialloc, a suburb of Melbourne. While driving away from the robbery at high speeds under the influence of alcohol and other drugs, she crashed into another car, severely injuring its driver.[6] She received a sentence of six years with a non-parole period of four years.[6]

Roach v Electoral Commissioner

While serving her sentence at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in 2006,[7] Roach completed a master's degree in writing from Swinburne University of Technology.[2] She was then the plaintiff in a case that challenged legislation preventing prisoners from voting. The High Court of Australia ruled in Roach v Electoral Commissioner (2007) that a blanket ban on prisoners voting was inappropriate, striking down legislation passed in 2006 that prevented prisoners serving sentences of less than three years from voting.[8] As Roach's sentence was longer than three years, she was not personally granted suffrage by the decision.[8] Roach v Electoral Commissioner was in 2021 described by Jonathan Crowe and Dani Larkin as "one of the most significant cases in recent Australian constitutional history".[9]: 245  For her work on the case, Roach was a joint winner of the 2007 Tim McCoy Human Rights Award.[10]

Later activism

Roach was released from prison in August 2008.[11] Since her release, she has become an activist, particularly advocating for Indigenous women, women suffering domestic violence, and incarcerated women. She was a founding member of the National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.[12]

Roach believes that her first criminal charge at the age of two was "basically the start of [her] criminalisation," and that it "set the course for [her] life… negatively influenc[ing] the way [she] was viewed by police and other authorities from then on".[13] She is an advocate for prison abolition.[7] She believes that prisons do not lead to rehabilitation, instead causing people to "become subhuman".[7][14] She has proposed alternatives such as dadirri ("a Central Desert tradition of going out in the bush and reconnecting with country and culture"),[14] halfway houses for low-risk female prisoners,[15] and "healing places, particularly for Aboriginal women".[7]

Filmography

Film

YearTitleRoleNotesRef
2009This Is How You'll Make Your Bed in PrisonSelfShort film[16]
2021Incarceration NationSelf[17]

Television

YearTitleRoleNotesRefs
2019You Can't Ask ThatSelfEpisode: "Domestic and Family Violence"[18][19]
2026Judgment: Cases That Changed AustraliaSelfEpisode: "Vote"[20][21]

References

  1. ↑ Roach v Electoral Commissioner & Anor [2007] HCATrans 467 (30 August 2007), High Court (Australia).
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Outline of evidence of Aunty Vickie Roach". Yoorrook Justice Commission. Victoria. 15 December 2022. Retrieved 3 August 2026.
  3. ↑ "Yuin S67". Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Canberra. Retrieved 5 August 2026.
  4. ↑ Fazal, Mahmood (28 January 2019). "Indigenous Australians Are the Most Incarcerated People on Earth". Vice Media. New York. Archived from the original on 28 August 2025. Retrieved 3 August 2026.
  5. ↑ Hunt, Elle (25 November 2016). "Vickie Roach: 'I was set up for abuse by my childhood'". Guardian Australia. Sydney. Archived from the original on 1 February 2023. Retrieved 5 August 2026.
  6. 1 2 "Former delinquent takes on Government and wins". Age. Melbourne. 31 August 2007. Archived from the original on 9 January 2026. Retrieved 4 August 2026.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Dulaney, Michael (9 July 2020). "Vickie Roach saw her first death in custody at 18. She's spent the decades since fighting to abolish prisons". ABC News. Sydney. Archived from the original on 14 May 2026. Retrieved 4 August 2026.
  8. 1 2 Nicol, Emily (13 May 2022). "How an incarcerated Yuin woman took on the Electoral Commission and won". NITV News. Sydney. Archived from the original on 9 January 2026. Retrieved 5 August 2026.
  9. ↑ Crowe, Jonathan; Larkin, Dani (27 June 2021). "Roach v Electoral Commissioner (2007) 233 CLR 162". In Watson, Nicole; Douglas, Heather (eds.). Indigenous Legal Judgments: Bringing Indigenous Voices into Judicial Decision Making. Abingdon-on-Thames, England: Routledge. pp. 245–259. ISBN 9781000401219.
  10. ↑ "The interviewees". Incarceration Nation. Archived from the original on 25 November 2025. Retrieved 4 August 2026.
  11. ↑ Munro, Ian (22 June 2010). "The women inside". Age. Melbourne. Archived from the original on 14 August 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2026.
  12. ↑ "Our Members". National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. Archived from the original on 14 May 2026. Retrieved 5 August 2026.
  13. ↑ Rowley, Sylvia (22 March 2018). "Stolen, imprisoned, given a criminal record: Australia's shameful treatment of the Stolen Generations revealed". National Indigenous Television. Archived from the original on 3 September 2025. Retrieved 5 August 2026.
  14. 1 2 Valentish, Jenny (9–15 June 2018). "Vickie Roach and Women Transforming Justice". Saturday Paper. No. 208. Melbourne. Retrieved 4 August 2026.
  15. ↑ Topsfield, Jewel (23 May 2009). "Leading the charge". Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 5 June 2009. Retrieved 5 August 2026.
  16. ↑ "This Is How You'll Make Your Bed in Prison". Ronin Films. Canberra. Archived from the original on 6 June 2026. Retrieved 4 August 2026.
  17. ↑ "Incarceration Nation". Screen Australia. Sydney. Retrieved 4 August 2026.
  18. ↑ "Radio National: Vickie Roach's turbulent life, in and out of strife". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Sydney. 6 January 2026. Archived from the original on 12 January 2026. Retrieved 5 August 2026.
  19. ↑ Docker, Kirk; Smith, Aaron (3 April 2019). "Domestic and Family Violence". You Can't Ask That. Series 4. Episode 1. Sydney. ABC.
  20. ↑ McManus, Bridget (12 April 2026). "Forget true crime, the ABC documentary hoping to put 'true law' in the spotlight". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 6 August 2026.
  21. ↑ Behrendt, Larissa (14 April 2026). "Vote". Judgment: Cases That Changed Australia. Series 1. Episode 4. Sydney. ABC.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.