Watch Houses in Alice Springs and Palmerston are still being used as makeshift prisons despite the Northern Territory government's promises.

In promoting a series of new "tough on crime" policies, the new CLP government has seen the prison population in the NT skyrocket, with 1,338 adults on remand across the territory, an 18 per cent increase since the start of the year.

Watch Houses, which are not designed to hold people long-term, have become overcrowded, and NT Corrections Minister Gerard Maley told Parliament on March 18 that "Corrections will no longer staff or use operational police watch houses in Palmerston and Alice Springs".

"This means that Watch Houses are available to protect Territorians and allow police to move their job to move freely in and arrest people who do the wrong thing," he said.

However, on Thursday, it was revealed that 69 prisoners are in the Palmerston Police Watch House, 12 in Katherine, and three in Alice Springs.

Police officers oversee watch houses rather than specially trained correctional staff, and police union president Nathan Finn said he was frustrated officers in the Palmerston and Alice Springs, as well as Katherine, Watch Houses were being "forced to act as correctional officers".

Independent MLA Justine Davis said Watch Houses were not meant for long-term occupancy, arguing the holding of prisoners is a "significant risk to safety for prisoners and for staff".

There has been widespread condemnation of the treatment of inmates in both NT watch houses and prisons, with independent politician and Yolŋu man Yiŋiya Mark Guyula saying in January he had written to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, urging them to visit the NT over the "terrible conditions".

"Access to showers is only happening every four or more days, the lights are on all the time so people can't sleep, people are sometimes sleeping quite near to toilet bowls because there is no space," he said.

"There are 18 people stuffed into a cell, and many people are sleeping on the floor without bedding.

"This sounds like jail conditions in a third-world country or maybe worse."

Ms Davis said on Friday: "Using Watch Houses as makeshift prisons [is] not just a matter of inconvenience—it's a life-or-death issue."

"In January 2025, NTPA President Nathan Finn warned that a death in custody was only a 'matter of time,' and now, four months later, the situation has not improved," she added.

Two affidavits submitted to the Alice Springs Local Court in January revealed Indigenous women in the Alice Springs Watch House are being kept in hot, poorly ventilated cells with up to 20 other women, often only being able to drink from a tap above an often-blocked communal toilet.

One respondent said there are "nearly 20 women in a cell," and noted, "when there are this many, we have to share a mattress as there is not enough room for everyone to have a mattress".

She said she was unable to wash out her mouth after using her puffer as the sink above the toilet - which are "blocked and stink" and routinely "filled with sick and other people's saliva".

"I have to use the water above the toilet to make my breakfast. We add the water above the toilet to our Weetbix," she added.

Almost 90 per cent of all prisoners in the NT are Indigenous, with over 1 per cent of the entire NT population incarcerated.

In January, Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe wrote on X (formerly Twitter): "Eighteen people to a cell, people sleeping on concrete floors next to toilets, lights left on 24/7, lack of safe drinking water, people allowed showers only every four days. What kind of country are we becoming?"

Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has routinely batted away criticism of the corrections system, arguing in January prisons were "not designed to be a holiday camp".

"We won't be putting air conditioning in or making it a luxurious destination," she told ABC News Breakfast. "This is a prison for people who have done the wrong thing."

The CLP government have also routinely celebrated their added prison numbers in media releases, arguing that they are making the NT safer.

Ms Davis said a growing prison population was not the "sign of a healthy society, it's a sign that the system has failed".

"The Government must act now to address these issues and put Territorians' safety first."