Australian Indigenous Law Review ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1 NOT MUCH LIKE HOME: THE NEED TO UNDERSTAND PRISON ENVIRONMENTS FOR AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL PRISONERS ELIZABETH GRANT 1 ABSTRACT Individuals outside the Western domiciliary tradition may have insurmountable difficulties in prison environments. Although the varying and differing accommodation needs of Australian Aboriginal prisoners have been recognised since the 1800s, documented understandings of the culturally specific environmental needs and preferences of Aboriginal prisoners are few and limited in application. A lack of evidence-based research has meant most considerations of the needs of Aboriginal prisoners have arisen in the course of coronial enquiries and royal commissions or have been gleaned from the first-hand experiences of custodial and police officers or stakeholder consultations with Aboriginal groups. Given the increasing rates of Indigenous incarceration and the poor outcomes of Aboriginal prisoners, accommodating the environmental needs of Aboriginal prisoners is shifting from being a previously ignored issue to one of critical social and economic significance. This paper presents the findings from the first empirical study of the needs and preferences of Aboriginal prisoners in custody. Data for the research was gathered by studying five South Australian prisons and conducting a series of interviews with 55 male Aboriginal prisoners. The results suggest that prison environments should move from being designed within philosophies of segregation and separation to recognising a number of common environmental preferences shared by various groups of Aboriginal prisoners. These include the importance of Aboriginal domiciliary practices, lifestyles structured around the social group and the need to maintain connections to country and kin for all Aboriginal prisoners. The paper presents new findings of the environmental needs of Aboriginal prisoners which have significance to the design and provision of custodial accommodation and which are based on an improved understanding the impact of the prison environments on Aboriginal prisoners. 1 Dr. Elizabeth Grant lectures at Wilto Yerlo, the Centre for Indigenous Research and Studies at the University of Adelaide. Elizabeth Grant’s teaching and research interests lie in Aboriginal architecture and environments with particular interest in criminal justice design for Aboriginal peoples. This paper is drawn from her recent PhD dissertation entitled ‘Safe and more Congruent Prison Environments for Aboriginal Prisoners: A South Australian Study’ which was jointly supervised from the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Adelaide and the Aboriginal Environment Research Centre, at the University of Queensland. The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of Professor Paul Memmott (Aboriginal Environments Research Centre, the University of Queensland) and Christopher Charles (Aboriginal Rights Legal Movement of South Australia) for their useful comments on various drafts of this paper and sincerely thank the Aboriginal men who participated in the study.