Pearls and Irritations

It was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, a day meant to mark the start of a 16-day global campaign to end the scourge of gender-based violence against women. Yet, on this day of reflection and action, The Australian chose to publish a follow-up story to its sensationalised splash just two days earlier about criminalised woman, Jody Thomson.

The exposé by David Murray, a journalist for The Australian, had launched a public attack against Jody under the inflammatory headline, “Catch me if you can conwoman’s rebirth as charity money magnet.” In his so-called exposé, Murray dredged up Jody’s criminal history of fraud and deception—once dubbed the “catch-me-if-you-can thief”—and painted her with the insinuation that she was “back at it again.” In the article, Murray detailed Jody’s past offending and relied on a few sources to allude to the fact that Jody was using her business, Dreamtime Aroha, to fundraise for community, and was perhaps misappropriating those funds. What Murray failed to provide, however, was actual evidence. Instead, the article relied on innuendo, suspicion, and tired stereotypes about women with criminal records, specifically Aboriginal women, weaponising Jody’s history to erode her credibility and humanity. After all, if Murray’s so-called sources had any real evidence of misappropriated funds other than mere “hunches”, surely, they would have gone to the police, rather than to a journalist.

The article while lengthy and protracted, was puzzling in itself, seemingly unsure or at least unconvinced by its own assertions. At one point, Murray relies on a source from Cherbourg community, detailing how Jody fundraised for supplies for the Gundoo Day Care Centre, and after she received large donations delivered food and nappies to the centre. Murray’s source states that she did not know if the donations were received, that she had never heard of Dreamtime Aroha (Jody’s business), and confidently declared she absolutely would have known if Jody had made donations to the children’s centre. Then in the next paragraph, the same source confirms that the donation was indeed received. In another section of the article, Murray appears to celebrate Jody’s advocacy that garnered significant international support to elicit an apology from the upmarket venue, Redleaf Wollombi who had displayed an artwork depicting what Jody described as ‘Aboriginal people being slaughtered by colonisers.’ Murray describes Jody’s advocacy for a vision for a fairer world as: ‘on its face, it is an incredible story of redemption.’

David Murray’s article also fixates on the fact that Jody does not disclose her criminal record on her business pages (although she has since chosen to), implying that this omission is somehow deceitful or dishonest. But there is no legal or moral requirement for anyone to broadcast their past convictions in every aspect of their life. The notion that criminalised people must be open books—forever defined by their past mistakes—ignores the fundamental right to privacy and the right to move on. This insistence that Jody, or anyone with a criminal record, must weave their past into every corner of their present is a form of perpetual punishment. It denies the possibility of redemption, forces individuals to carry the weight of public judgment indefinitely and reduces them to a single dimension. Jody is not just her conviction; she is a person of many layers—someone who has rebuilt her life, contributes meaningfully to her community, and deserves to be seen as more than the sum of her mistakes. Besides, Jody’s case was extremely high profile, her life has been a magazine anyone can thumb through since her arrest. Additionally, she is the daughter of a high-profile justice advocate. Jody has made no secret of being Debbie Kilroy’s daughter and Debbie Kilroy makes no secret of her past imprisonment. If anyone thinks there was some grand cover up here, they really have not been paying attention.

This relentless pull back to Jody’s conviction, demanding it be a feature of her everyday life, even in the free world, ironically makes a compelling argument for abolition. By insisting that people with a criminal record must forever wear the stain of their conviction, media figures like David Murray and the politicians who capitalise on these narratives expose a glaring contradiction: they don’t actually believe in the rehabilitative potential of prisons or the redemptive capacity of punishment. If they did, Jody’s efforts to rebuild her life—her work in the community, her thriving business, her contributions to those in need—would be celebrated as evidence of transformation, not weaponised against her. Instead, their actions reinforce the truth abolitionists have long argued: the carceral system is not designed to rehabilitate or redeem but to punish indefinitely, to control, and to stigmatise. In doing so, they expose the carceral state for what it truly is—an institution that thrives on dehumanisation and the denial of second chances.

They say, “do the crime, do the time,” but in Jody’s case, it seems the time never truly ends.

The attack on her has come despite her having served her sentence and since dedicated her life to rebuilding and giving back to her community. She now works full-time in her community, and owns a successful business, even being nominated recently for Telstra Best of Business Awards, and earlier a finalist in the Queens Ball Awards for First Nations Leadership and Engagement. Jody uses her social media platform not to promote herself but to raise money to support vulnerable people. Yet none of this was enough to counteract the enduring narrative that people like her, people like me, criminalised women like us, cannot escape our past. As the article spun its narrative of doubt, suspicion, and condemnation, the shadow of Jody’s conviction loomed large, as if to say that a woman with a criminal record could never be redeemed. She could never reinvent herself; she could never be anything other than what the tabloids say she was.

The violence didn’t end with the article. On the very day meant to highlight the fight against violence inflicted on women, The Australian became a vehicle for the perpetuation of state-based violence, colluding with government forces to further punish Jody. The state seized upon the article, using it as a springboard to launch an investigation into her work and activities—despite no substantiated allegations. What was ostensibly a campaign day against violence became yet another example of how media and government together enforce a colonial carceral state, one that refuses to let criminalised women move beyond the worst moment of their lives. In a new headline, the Australian announced: “Probe into ex-con’s fundraising”, citing the Queensland’s Attorney -General’s investigation into Jody’s fundraising efforts – not into the funds themselves, but whether she was authorised to fundraise – and really, if they are doing this, every mum, dad and grandparent fundraiser on GoFundMe should be quaking in their boots.

However, Jody’s story is emblematic of a broader issue: how media sensationalism and state power intertwine to prop up the prison industrial complex. Criminalised women, especially those from marginalised communities, are continually targeted, dehumanised, and publicly shamed by a media eager to profit from crime stories and a state eager to justify its punitive policies. This is not just a personal attack on Jody—it is a systemic one, designed to perpetuate a narrative that criminalised people are irredeemable, ensuring they remain locked out of society long after they have served their time. The media’s complicity in this process cannot be understated.

Stories like Murray’s are not isolated instances; they are part of a larger ecosystem of fear mongering and criminalisation. True crime narratives dominate our screens, with sensationalised coverage that reinforces the myth of “dangerous offenders” lurking around every corner. These narratives are gendered and racialised, with women often reduced to stereotypes—manipulative temptresses or conniving criminals—and racialised people depicted as inherently dangerous.

And the harm goes beyond the headlines. Articles like Murray’s remain online indefinitely, ensuring that the “worst thing” someone has done becomes their permanent identity. With a single Google search, criminalised people find themselves unable to secure housing, employment, or even rebuild personal relationships. The digital scarlet letter locks them out of the very resources they need to move forward, perpetuating cycles of poverty, exclusion, and punishment.

I know this all too well. I have a criminal conviction (probably time I disclose this to you) for deception – 48 counts of it to be precise. This has locked me out of both the housing market and the labour market since my release from prison. Worse, it has haunted my interpersonal relationships for the past decade. I cringe when I remember lovers’ faces as they “discover” who I am before I’ve had a chance to tell them, family members of partners who size me up to see if they can trust me, and people who hold their purses just that little bit closer when they realise there is a “criminal” in their midst. It’s disheartening, and I used to feel ashamed, but these days I mostly feel anger and pity. Pity for those that judge us, because in the judging and exiling of us, they are missing out on our contributions, our brilliant contributions. But I am not naïve. The power of the media’s vitriol almost stopped me writing this article. I know what will come with its publishing: an onslaught of abuse, attempts to “out” me, to “expose my crimes,” to reduce me to a caricature of my past. The power and brutality of that inevitability was almost enough to silence me. But retreating into darkness is not the answer. Cowering in their shadows will not change a thing. Standing up to their bullying, refusing to let their lies define me or those in my community—that is where change begins. Standing shoulder to shoulder with my criminalised kin, we find strength in each other, and together we expose them for the thugs they truly are. They cannot diminish us when we refuse to disappear quietly into the night.

But some do get to slink quietly into the night. Some are granted the privilege of anonymity, quietly integrating back into society without the constant glare of public judgment. I think of five women, me included, who have faced high-profile fraud cases in this country—five of us whose faces have been splashed across papers, whose names became synonymous with scandal. Yet, some have managed to move on, carving out a semblance of normality. Their participation in so-called “civil society” accepted because they have moulded themselves into perfectly palatable, sanitised figures. They are deemed more acceptable—nice, contrite, and non-threatening to the status quo. When I examine this five, it’s clear to me that their acceptance hinges on their collusion with carcerality and compliance with the colonial state. It’s about aligning themselves with the systems that criminalised them in the first place, proving their loyalty to a framework that thrives on punishment and control. But beyond that, there’s a racial element at play here too. The ones who are allowed to quietly disappear, who are afforded the chance to rebuild their lives without relentless scrutiny, are often those who fit into the mould of whiteness or proximity to it. Meanwhile, those of us who don’t—those of us who are Indigenous or otherwise racialised—are continuously dragged back, our reintegration stories overshadowed by a colonial logic that refuses to see us as anything but criminal. This is why the media’s obsession with people like Jody feels so vicious. It’s not just about punishing her past actions—it’s about ensuring that some people, particularly racialised women, remain locked in a perpetual state of being criminalised, regardless of the time they’ve served or the changes they’ve made. It’s about upholding a system that works hand in glove with racial animus to decide who gets a second chance and who remains shackled to their worst moment.

What might be even worse, though, is witnessing the betrayal during this witch hunt. Among those same five women, some of them are actively engaging in the media’s takedown of Jody. They are liking, sharing, and even seeming to revel in the spectacle, as though taking comfort in someone else being targeted, relieved that the spotlight isn’t on them. But the truth is, they are fooling themselves if they think they’ve been fully welcomed into the “uncriminalised” class they so desperately perform belonging to. Even if they are invited into boardrooms, universities, or companies, they’ll never truly belong. This country’s fixation on permanent records ensures that no amount of contrition or compliance can shield them. And if the system can turn on Jody with such ferocity, it can—and will—turn on them the very moment they drop the mask of politeness and subservience, the second they stop performing the role of the sanitised, compliant “criminal.” And where is the solidarity in all this? What happened to standing with our criminalised kin? What happened to the understanding that if one of us is attacked, all of us are? If we allow the system to pick us off one by one, there will be no one left to fight back. Solidarity isn’t just an abstract ideal—it’s a necessity for survival. It’s heartbreaking to see people who should know better abandon the fight, people and organisations who claim to be abolitionists participating in the same cycles of violence they supposedly stand against.

However, ultimately the media are handmaidens to the state. Election cycles come and we see a surge in crime coverage, as politicians and journalists work in tandem to whip up a “crime crisis” that justifies harsher policing, longer sentences, and the expansion of carceral infrastructure. We only have to look at the recent Queensland election for evidence of that. This collusion reinforces the colonial carceral state, where prisons serve not as places of rehabilitation but as sites of racialised and gendered violence, punishing the most marginalised in our society. So, it is no coincidence that on a day meant to spotlight the eradication of violence against women, the case of Jody Thompson, a strong and brilliant Blak woman, is brought into the spotlight. The very publishing of an article attacking her reveals how media and state violence go hand in hand. If we were really serious about addressing gender-based violence, we would confront the ways the prison industrial complex—propped up by sensationalist media and punitive state policies—targets and destroys the lives of criminalised Blak women – but we aren’t, are we? At least not all of us.

My Dad always says, ‘there will be a reckoning’. And this problem of media/state collusion definitely requires one. It’s time to break this cycle. It’s time to hold the media accountable for its role in upholding a system that thrives on fear, exclusion, and the dehumanisation of criminalised people. It means moving away from clickbait and profit-driven narratives. It means examining how racial and gender biases shape reporting. It means giving space to voices that challenge the prison industrial complex, particularly those of formerly incarcerated people and communities most impacted by the carceral state. Until then, we need to confront the fact that the media remains an accomplice to the prison industrial complex—a willing partner that continues to uphold systems of oppression while profiting from the suffering they cause.

It’s time to demand a media that informs rather than harms, that uplifts rather than destroys. It’s time to dismantle the narratives that keep the prison industrial complex alive and start telling the stories that set us free.

Women like Jody are not society’s failures—they are its future.

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