Almost half of Victorian male inmates have a brain injury. For Michael, diagnosis was the first step to a new life

The Guardian

10-05-2025

Michael Mayne does not know precisely when he acquired a brain injury. It may have been in one of two serious motorcycle accidents, or – as he suspects – the consequence of decades of drug use, or a combination of all three. But he knows when it was diagnosed: he was 47 and he had just come out of prison – and not for the first time.
An estimated 2% of Australians have an acquired brain injury (ABI). The most common causes are accidents, trauma, stroke, and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. But among the prison population, the prevalence of ABI is astronomically high, leading legal experts to argue that the system that is supposed to be providing justice is effectively criminalising disability instead.
A 2011 study estimated that 42% of male prisoners and 33% of female prisoners in Victoria had an ABI. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that nationally, the prevalence may be as high as 90%. But despite people with ABI being disproportionately represented in prison, there are few screening processes to identify them along the way and little if any available support.
Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads
Mayne hopes to change that. He's one of four people who have shared their stories for a new podcast, All Been Inside, exploring the different ways the justice system traps people with ABI into a cycle of criminalisation. The podcast is the product of Voices for Change – a self-advocacy group for people with ABI who have had contact with the justice system – and Fitzroy Legal Service.
'What I know now, if I knew it back then, I'd be a completely different person,' Mayne says.
Mayne had been in trouble with the law since he was a kid, starting off in juvenile detention for motorbike-related offences at age 13. He really 'spiralled out of control' after the deaths of his parents, just two months apart from each other, when he was 18, and his drug use began to escalate, as did his crimes: car theft, burglary, armed robbery.
'The amounts of heroin I was pumping into myself – I was spending sometimes $1,500 a day,' Mayne, 57, says. He overdosed 'a couple of times'; he crashed his motorbike; he went in and out of prison repeatedly.
A doctor first suggested to Mayne that he might have an ABI during one of those prison stints. About a decade ago, with the help of his GP, he found out for sure.
'Having an ABI, I feel like a second-class citizen because I don't understand a lot of things. I taught myself in jail how to read by reading the newspaper,' Mayne says in the podcast. 'If there was some way they could have screened me to see if I had an ABI I think my time might have been shorter and a lot different.'
Jai Haines knew about his ABI from the start. He was 19 when he misjudged a corner on his motorbike. The bike collided with the tree first, and his head followed – an impact so powerful it split his helmet in two.
Before the accident, the young Tommeginne man had played state-level gridiron, been a good student, and planned to join the army. But medical testing soon confirmed a brain injury, and Haines's world was profoundly altered.
'Sitting in the hospital and having to do all these cognitive skill things, and I just couldn't concentrate … As much as I wanted to try so hard, I just couldn't do it. And it was making me feel really angry,' Haines, now 45, says. 'I ended up just hitting the drugs really hard, started drinking a lot, and that led to me doing crime.'
It would take many years, a mini-stroke, a compassionate lawyer – 'she talked to me in a way that made me feel like I was valid' – and similarly compassionate judge to help him turn his life around. 'His name was Judge Hardy, and it was the way he spoke to me. He knew that I was a better person,' Haines said. 'He actually sat down [with me] … and he goes, 'I'm not going to set you up to fail, mate'.'
Stan Winford, a researcher and legal expert at RMIT University's Centre for Innovative Justice, says it usually takes multiple encounters with the system for people with an ABI to have their injury identified, let alone addressed. And even when people know it, disclosure isn't always in their best interests.
Sign up to Five Great Reads
Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning
after newsletter promotion
'It can be something that makes you vulnerable to different forms of exploitation and oppression within the system,' Winford says. 'If they let people know that they have that form of disability, they're more likely to be stood over by other prisoners; if they let some officials know – police officers, for example – they might be less able to exercise their rights in interviews.'
As the justice system develops 'what are becoming quite difficult and overbearing conditions' in community corrections or bail orders, he says, people who have difficulties with memory, executive function, or organisation are more likely to be drawn back into it.
'Prisons do become warehouses for people who have mental health issues or disability support needs,' Winford says. 'Disability and social exclusion are often connected, and not having appropriate support in the community can lead to contact with the justice system, and then those cycles continue.'
In a damning 2023 report, the Victorian auditor general found that the department of justice and community safety did not know how many of its prisoners had an ABI, or how many required support. The department had no method of capturing that information when a person came through the door, and long waitlists for only limited services, the report found.
The auditor general recommended the department develop mandatory screening processes to identify prisoners with intellectual disability or ABI, train staff accordingly, and monitor prisons to ensure they complied with the support requirements for people with disability.
The Victorian department of justice did not respond to Guardian Australia's request for comment about whether it had implemented recommendations from the auditor-general.
Each episode of All Been Inside includes concrete suggestions for helping people with ABI out of the vicious loop of criminalisation. For Haines and Mayne, getting involved with Voices for Change was an integral part of breaking that cycle.
'I found it really difficult at times, but I stuck through it,' Haines says. 'Now I've got this passion, I've got this empathy. I've got so much inside me that I can give back to my community, because I know how much I did wrong and I can't change my past, but what I do today will show the person that I am now.'
'One of the best things I've done in my life is joining that group,' Mayne says. 'People say to me, what's it like to have your life back? I say, well, I haven't got my life back; now I've actually got a life, you know?'
In Australia, the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline is at 1800 250 015; families and friends can seek help at Family Drug Support Australia at 1300 368 186. In the UK, Action on Addiction is available on 0300 330 0659. In the US, call or text SAMHSA's National Helpline at 988