The Legal Advice and Education in Prison (LEAP) for Women pilot program assists women prisoners in realising and enforcing their human rights, in particular their rights in accessing justice.

The service is provided by Wirringa Baiya Aboriginal Women’s Legal Centre, Women’s Legal Services (WLS) NSW and Hawkesbury Nepean Community Legal Centre in recognition of the high levels of unmet need amongst prisoners for civil and family law services. LEAP addresses this need by providing and facilitating access to legal services for incarcerated women, in particular, Aboriginal women. Through LEAP, the CLCs provide regular, free legal advice clinics and community legal education workshops at the three women’s correctional centres in metropolitan Sydney – Dillwynia, Emu Plains and Silverwater. Where resources and expertise allows, the CLCs will also provide ongoing casework and representation. By visiting each month women develop a familiarity and trust in the service, which in turn facilitates their access to the service for legal assistance.

This innovative program has now been in operation for three years and has been well received by all involved. LEAP received the 2009 NSW Law and Justice Foundation Community Legal Centre Award. We are seeking ongoing funding to enable us to continue to assist female prisoners in accessing justice and enforcing their human rights.

LEAP for Women Case Study

Suzi* was seen as an inmate at a Correctional Centre and assisted as part of our LEAP for Women project. She was concerned about a compensation levy being incorrectly debited from her account and instructed us that the levy most likely dated back to a previous sentence, which was ultimately reduced on appeal.

We researched when the compensation levy should have been paid and made a number of enquiries to ascertain who has the authority to investigate this issue within DCS. We then wrote to the Regional Manager in Sentence Administration and requested that the matter be investigated and if appropriate, the record be corrected and our client reimbursed.

Sentence Administration ultimately agreed the client was correct and there had been an error. The levy payments were stopped immediately with the client to be reimbursed all monies taken in error.

* Not her real name