Leading Australian psychiatrists have joined a growing chorus of criticism against the Northern Territory's prison and justice systems, warning that the government's punitive approach is deepening cycles of trauma and crime rather than reducing them.
In comments unlikely to sway the hard-line Country Liberal Party (CLP) government, psychiatrists, lawyers, medical professionals, and Aboriginal-controlled community organisations gathered in Alice Springs last week for a symposium hosted by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP).
They argued the Territory's pro-incarceration policies - introduced under the guise of community safety - are having the opposite effect.
"Psychiatrists in the Northern Territory, particularly those working within prisons and youth detention centres, are raising urgent concerns about the rising incarceration rates in the NT," said Dr Sarah Dorrington, a forensic psychiatrist and RANZCP NT Branch representative.
"We're seeing a lot of adults and young people in custody with serious mental illness and physical and intellectual disability."
Since sweeping to power in a landslide victory last year, the CLP has overhauled the justice system, lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 10, reintroducing spit hoods in youth detention, expanding mandatory sentencing, and announcing plans to arm public safety officers - a move labelled by critics as a "deeply irresponsible escalation".
The NT now has the second-highest incarceration rate in the world, behind only El Salvador, with more than one per cent of its population behind bars. Aboriginal people make up almost 90 per cent of those imprisoned, and nearly half are on remand.
Human rights advocate Thomas Mayo said in August that the Territory has seen "law after detrimental law introduced," which "criminalise our youth, introduce weapons into our community, and further marginalise and incarcerate Aboriginal communities." He warned that "record-high incarceration rates and more weapons in our community will not make anyone safer".
Conditions inside prisons and youth detention centres have drawn national concern, with reports of 20 women being held in one cell in Alice Springs and forced to drink from a toilet, and of an 11-year-old detained in an adult facility in Palmerston.
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Independent MP Yiŋiya Mark Guyula told Parliament last month the CLP "failed to understand the issues faced by Indigenous communities, in part, because it included no Indigenous MPs," while the family of late NT Supreme Court Justice James Muirhead urged federal intervention, describing the government's approach as "regressive actions" which only serve to "punish the vulnerable, fuel cycles of trauma and recidivism, and ignore decades of research into what actually works to build safer communities".
Advocates and experts have long argued approaches which focus on the root causes of offending serve the community in the long run, with offending exacerbated by time in detention.
This is most keenly felt in the youth space. A submission to a Senate inquiry by the Australian and New Zealand Children's Commissioners, Guardians and Advocates (ANZCCGA) warned detention harms young people, many of whom have already endured trauma, disability, or homelessness.
"Children in the justice system have fragmented education experiences, marked by periods of exclusion and expulsion, resulting in poor educational outcomes," the group said.
"They have precarious living arrangements, including homelessness and/or placements in out-of-home care ... and live with mental illness and/or disabilities."
Dr Dorrington said the government's incarceration-heavy policy "flies in the face of evidence," pointing to "community-based interventions and mental health justice diversion programs" that have "proven effective in tackling the underlying drivers of youth crime".
She said such programs deliver "better outcomes for young people and their communities, at a fraction of the cost".
Despite widespread concern from experts, the CLP has shown little willingness to shift course.
Critics have been dismissed as "offender apologists," and when paediatricians wrote to Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro earlier this year expressing "deep concern" over youth justice policies, she responded bluntly: "I will do my job, which is to run the NT, and they can do their job, which is to look after sick children."
Last week's gathering in Central Australia brought together health and justice leaders and Aboriginal advocates who shared a clear alternative vision: reducing youth crime by addressing its root causes - trauma, poverty, homelessness, and mental illness - instead of expanding incarceration.
"We all agreed it's time to stop crime before it starts," Dr Dorrington said.
"That means taking proven, community-led solutions to Territory and Federal governments, investing in early intervention, better mental health support, and programs that actually work, especially for First Nations kids and families that are disproportionately affected and harmed."
