More than 1% of Northern Territory population imprisoned as record jail numbers predicted to climb
Share:
Watch houses repurposed as long-term prison cells as Country Liberal government claims ‘such is the nature of the mess we have inherited’. Police watch houses in the Northern Territory are being repurposed as long-term prison cells as record imprisonment numbers push the system to breaking point.
There were 2,613 people locked up in the NT on Tuesday – more than 1% of the territory’s population of 255,100, according to the NT Department of Corrections. By contrast, in Western Australia – the state with the next highest imprisonment rate – about 0.2% of the population is behind bars. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows the NT incarceration rate is more than five times the national average.
New laws were enacted on Monday to ensure young people and adults who breach bail conditions, commit serious offences or repeatedly offend are not granted bail. More than 250 people are being held in NT police watch houses, spilling over from overcrowded prisons unable to cope with a surge that is only expected to grow as tough new bail laws take effect this week.
Clancy Dane, the principal lawyer at Territory Criminal Lawyers, said conditions in police watch houses are “appalling”. “Police watch houses are overcrowded, they’re oppressive, the lights stay on, the noise is constant. Prisoners complain that they don’t have privacy when they go to the toilet,” he said.
“That’s going to traumatise people … and it’s not going to make us any safer.”. The NT prison population has steadily increased since 2020, but rose sharply after the Country Liberal party was elected in August on a law and order platform and immediately moved to expand police powers.
