The Tasmanian Aboriginal Legal Service has highlighted "systemic failures" detailed in the state's Custodial Inspector's latest report.

Recently released by Custodial Inspect Richard Connock, the Children in Tasmania's prisons – review report 2025 indicates children being held in Tasmania's adult prisons were exposed to threats of sexual abuse, violent behaviour, and inhumane and degrading treatment.

Following the report's release, Tasmanian Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Jake Smith said the report reveals ongoing breaches of the Child and Youth Safe Organisations Act 2023.

"This is an issue facing all youth in contact with the police and the justice system," Mr Smith said.

Mr Smith said TALS was especially concerned about the mandated gender-specific searches and the lack of cultural supports for Aboriginal youth, who are over-represented in custody but under-served.

"This report particularly highlights young Aboriginal girls have been searched by male workers at twice the rate of non-Aboriginal girls," Mr Smith said.

"It is shocking that this can and still occurs. The trauma and impact of a young person coming into police custody and the justice system is lifelong.

"To be searched by someone of a different gender and housed alongside adults further adds trauma. This needs to be urgently addressed."

In releasing his report, Mr Connock said the Tasmanian government's practice of holding children in the state's adult prisons is putting their safety at risk and must change.

"Children should not be in prison. This is the clear conclusion from this report," Mr Connock said.

"And yet, in spite of the findings of the Commission of Inquiry and the significant youth justice reform agenda currently underway, children and young people continue to be held in prison watch-houses, exposing them to all manner of violations of their human rights."

Mr Connock said the Tasmanian government was failing to adhere to the Child and Youth Safe Organisations Act 2023's Child and Youth Safe Standards.

"Placing children in the same space as adults being held for a range of offences, including child sex offences, clearly does not meet these standards," he said.

"Many children have informed us that watch-houses are noisy and that they can hear adults shouting at all hours.

"One child told us that while in a watch-house they were subjected to threats of sexual abuse by an adult held in a cell nearby."

Similar to other states, Tasmania locks up Aboriginal youth at a disproportionately high rate.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) data suggests on an average day in 2022-23 in the state, "First Nations young people aged 10–17 were about four times as likely as non-Indigenous young people to be under supervision".

Data suggests First Nations young people aged 10-17 represented 31 per cent of young people under youth justice supervision in Tasmania during that time period, despite Aboriginal youth in Tasmanian making up 10 per cent of that age demographic in the general population.

The Custodial Inspector's report prompted Mr Smith to call for the urgent need for cultural supports for the state's incarcerated Indigenous youth.

"Further to this, the lack of cultural supports for Aboriginal children who are over-represented in these environments also urgently needs to be addressed," the Palawa man said.

"The government needs to take urgent action to address these items, among others in the report. Our young people are in these environments.

"These young people are our future, and action must be taken now to address these issues."

Following the report's release Tasmanian independent Member for Nelson, Meg Webb, highlighted the "disturbing" over-representation of Aboriginal children in prison watch-houses.

"The independent Custodial Inspector's latest and alarming report into the use of adult prisons to hold children throws into sharp relief how seriously we are failing young Tasmanians," Ms Webb said.

"It is also very disturbing to read of the over-representation of Aboriginal children in prison watch-houses, particularly girls, which raises many serious questions of cultural safety which sadly appear to still be languishing in the too hard-basket."

Tasmania's Interim Commissioner for Children and Young People, Isabelle Crompton, called for full and prompt implementation of the recommendations the report made.

"The Custodial Inspector's report opens with a simple statement – a position long-championed by my office and one I believe any reasonable Tasmanian would accept – that children should not be in prison," Ms Crompton said.

"This is entirely avoidable and must change."