Experts and advocates have issued urgent warnings over escalating overcrowding in Northern Territory prisons, as more than 70 correctional prisoners are reportedly being held in the Palmerston police watch house — months after the CLP government pledged to end the practice.
Corrections data from Wednesday shows 2,842 people are incarcerated across the Territory — more than 600 higher than when the CLP came to power last year. Almost 90 per cent of prisoners are Indigenous, and nearly half (49 per cent) are on remand, meaning they have not been convicted of a crime.
Lawyers have previously told National Indigenous Times many of those on remand ultimately receive no custodial sentence or are released on time served.
Speaking last week, Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy said bail and remand were "key drivers of the disproportionately high incarceration rates of First Nations young people and adults".
In a statement on Tuesday, the NT Police Union confirmed 92 detainees were in custody on Monday, including 76 correctional prisoners, describing the situation as "officially out of control".
The CLP Government has made repeated promises to stop using police facilities for correctional purposes, yet the Palmerston Watch House is now overflowing, Northern Territory Police Association President Nathan Finn said.
"It's not a matter of if, but when a serious custody incident occurs."
One former detainee from Palmerston — who was released this week — told the ABC: "You've got eight girls crammed into one cell — girls who are on their periods and are not even being allowed to have showers."
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The crisis follows reports in January of more than 20 women being crammed into a single cell at the Alice Springs Watch House, facilities where the only drinking water available was from above the toilet, after the Alice Springs Correctional Centre was closed in October.
"When there are this many, we have to share a mattress as there is not enough room for everyone to have a mattress," one inmate said in an affidavit.
The National Network of Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls (National Network) said it had recently visited women inside NT prisons in Alice Springs. They said they were told of abject conditions, including a lack of hygiene products, limited food, and delays of over a week to access showers.
"This government is choosing incarceration over safety, surveillance over support, and punishment over justice," National Network member Tabitha Lean said.
"Half of those imprisoned in the NT are on remand—still legally innocent. Yet they are being treated as disposable."
Since taking office, the CLP government has introduced a suite of measures that experts say disproportionately impact Aboriginal people. These include lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10 — reversing a Labor-era reform — and tightening bail laws.
Last week, Senator McCarthy directed some of her strongest criticism yet toward the NT government.
"While Corrections is doing what they can, it is NT laws that are driving this situation. It is unacceptable for both prisoners and staff," she said.
"Our prisons are holding people who have not been convicted of a crime because of laws which drastically reduce the circumstances under which they can be granted bail.
"As the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody made clear, the best way to reduce First Nations deaths in custody is to reduce the high incarceration rate of our people."
Debbie Kilroy, also with the National Network, said the Territory government was relying on punishment rather than reform.
"Aboriginal people are being criminalised at record levels, denied bail, and funnelled into overcrowded, inhumane watch houses where they are being sequestered away and warehoused in cages, rather than being treated like human beings," she said.
Independent MP Yiŋiya Mark Guyula raised the alarm earlier this year with the United Nations, calling for an investigation by the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
"We are hearing that people are being held for weeks and months in terrible conditions where there is severe overcrowding, access to showers is only happening every 4 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.
Advocacy group Justice Not Jails has also condemned the worsening situation, calling for community-based alternatives to incarceration.
"It doesn't help anyone to subject alleged perpetrators to horrific treatment," JNJ member Anna Sri said.
"The fact that the CLP Government is enabling these watch house conditions demonstrates that they have no interest in rehabilitation, despite the clear link between rehabilitation and crime prevention."
Mr Finn said the government had not resourced its tough on crime approach, taking supposed plaudits and ignoring the consequences.
"This Government continues to beat its chest about locking up more offenders, but it has utterly failed to plan for the consequences of its own policies," he said.
"If immediate action isn't taken, we're gravely concerned that someone - be it a police officer, a prisoner, or a member of the public, is going to be seriously injured or worse."
Despite the criticism, the NT government has announced further punitive reforms, including legislation to restrict access to youth diversion programs which aim to keep young people out of prison.
Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Corrections Gerard Maley defended the government's approach, telling NITV there was "no alternative" to using watch houses, despite telling Parliament in April watch houses would no longer be used to detain correctional prisoners.
"Whilst government can strengthen laws, adequately resource police and expand corrections capacity this needs to be matched with personal responsibility: individuals need to stop breaking the law," Mr Maley said.
