The Northern Territory government has announced they will introduce legislation next week to criminalise breaches of bail for children as well as expanding the presumption against bail to include youth, despite experts saying it will have no impact on community safety.

The new CLP government campaigned largely on law and order and have argued 'Declan's Law' - named after Declan Laverty, who was murdered at his workplace by someone on bail - forms a key element of that.

"Turning around the crime crisis Labor created will take time, but we are already taking the action needed, as we promised we would," Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said.

"We have a clear mandate to deliver this reform, and we make no apologies for delivering it."

Along with a presumption against bail for youth and adult serious violent offenders, regardless of whether a weapon is involved, other aspects of the legislation will include removing the existing requirement for use, or threatened use, of a weapon for there to be a presumption against bail; all breaches of bail will be criminalised; mandatory electronic monitoring for repeat serious offenders who are granted bail; and police being able to use wands in more public places, not just high-risk areas, including public transport and schools, to combat knife crime.

The government has also committed to lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 10 - against extensive medical, legal and human rights advice - with Ms Finocchiaro last month stating "experts can be political commentators all they like".

The policies have been labelled punitive and only likely to increase crime, in turn making the community less safe, by experts.

"The new Chief Minister has been elected on a platform to reduce crime, but her punitive agenda will do the exact opposite," NATSILS' chair Karly Warner said last month.

"Law and order posturing about punishment, power and control has never worked before and it won't work now."

Responding to 'Declan' Law,' Justice Reform Initiative executive director Dr Mindy Sotiri said it only continued the new government's 'tough on crime' approach that was unlikely to make the community safer.

She argued whilst the policies made good headlines, they lacked careful consideration.

"We need to ensure that policies to control crime and improve community safety are based on evidence, not emotion," Dr Sotiri said.

"This announcement to expand stop and search powers to allow police to wand at more public places – including schools and on public transport – appears to be a sign of a government taking advantage of legislative opportunities because they exist, not because of any underlying need."

The government has also been accused of abandoning the NT's commitment to Closing the Gap, with National Children's Commissioner Anne Hollonds arguing, "in terms of the Closing the Gap commitments, I can't see how these policies will assist".

Taking away detention as a last resort contradicts the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

The CLP have also vowed to bring back spit hoods in youth detention, despite being described as "inhumane" by a 2017 Royal Commission into the protection and detention of children in the NT, which recommended they no longer be used.

The criminalisation of bail for children and young people in Queensland saw an explosion in youth incarceration in the first six months after the state government suspended the human rights act to allow it.

Youth crime has been recorded routinely as an epidemic across the country, with media organisations helping to drive "fear mongering" according to Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Nerita Waight.

Last week, Commissioner Hollonds said when it came to the media, she had observed "a lack of interest in the solutions to the problem".

Dr Sotiri said ample evidence existed to show the over-policing of young people is ineffective at reducing crime.

"Early contact with police can in fact increase the likelihood of future justice system involvement and also lead to increased hostility between police and young people, when we should be trying to build strong respectful relationships," she said.

"Effective crime prevention requires moving away from adopting outdated and failed policies that deliberately seek to increase the reach of the criminal justice system and will increase the numbers of people incarcerated in the NT."