Aunty Vickie Roach called for more Australians to get behind the prison abolition movement on Thursday, telling Victoria's truth-telling inquiry: "How many success stories do you hear out of prison?"
The Yuin woman "conservatively" estimates she has 125 convictions to her name - the first when she was two-years-old, as a device to remove her from her mother.
Having been in and out of prison for three decades, Ms Roach likened strip searches to being raped, telling the Yoorrook Justice Commission they were required before and after family visits.
"You've got no choice - you can't say, 'no, I don't want to take my clothes off'. You understand that it's not your body anymore, it's theirs," Ms Roach said.
She recalled being arrested for the first time at age 17 after police told her that if she admitted to using heroin, they would get her help.
Instead, they threw her in jail, and she ultimately served three or four months behind bars.
Ms Roach initially figured authorities were just trying to "throw a scare" into her when they first remanded her for two weeks without bail.
"I'll never forget ... when they put me back in the cell, the sound the door made," she said.
"I'd been hearing it for two weeks but once I knew that was it … that noise was just heartbreaking."
Becoming institutionalised de-skilled people and essentially "lobotomised" them into compliance and conformity, she said.
Ms Roach said she was hospitalised following a car accident and shortly afterwards sent to jail.
It was only in court that she found out she'd been in an induced coma for days and she later had to contend with being ferried to prison in a leather escort belt while suffering through fractured ribs, sternum, skull and wrist, and internal injuries.
Ms Roach recalled being forced into rapid heroin withdrawals when she was sent to prison and receiving relief only in the first few days.
She called for prisoners to be helped to humanely and safely withdraw from drugs.
Appearing after Ms Roach, Victorian Legal Aid echoed the calls of previous witnesses for urgent reforms to keep Aboriginal people out of the justice system, including increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility and a health-based approach to public intoxication.
The organisation also called for changes to the child protection system that would reinstate the ability of the Children's Court to make orders in the best interest of children without time limits on family reunification.
"I'm 62 now and I can think about the last 20 to 25 years and count the number of reports that have touched on these issues," chief executive Louise Glanville told the commission.
Premier Daniel Andrews has recently acknowledged that too many Indigenous children are being taken from families and greater Aboriginal control of the system is needed.
Ms Glanville said the sentiment was welcome, but details of how that would be achieved must be made clear given how many recommendations in the past have not been enacted.
The Victorian government should fast-track critical reforms to immediately reduce the number of Indigenous people in custody, the Human Rights Law Centre says in a submission to the inquiry.
The nation's first truth-telling inquiry is examining injustices experienced by First Nations peoples as Victoria embarks on a path towards a treaty or treaties.
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