The Northern Territory Government’s ongoing abuse of incarceration as a default response to complex social issues is not just a policy failure—it is a crisis of human rights and imagination.
‘Let us be clear: this is not a matter of building more prison cells or throwing more beds into already overcrowded cages. This is a matter of decarceration,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
‘What we are witnessing is the violent result of punitive bail laws, net-widening policing strategies, and an expanding carceral state that disproportionately targets Aboriginal communities,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
‘Instead of addressing systemic failures with care and community-based solutions, the NT Government continues to rely on surveillance-heavy, punitive policing—including the use of private security firms to patrol Aboriginal communities—as a tool of control and punishment,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
‘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,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
This is not just a resourcing issue. This is a human rights catastrophe.
‘We remind the public that in April 2025, Minister Gerard Maley told Parliament that NT watch houses would no longer be used to detain corrections prisoners. And yet, here we are—less than four months later—with confirmation from the Minister during Estimates that people are still being held in police watch houses for up to 14 days, without access to privacy, natural light, or fresh air,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
Two members of the National Network recently visited Mparntwe (Alice Springs) and met with women inside the prison system who shared first-hand accounts of the abhorrent conditions inside watch houses:
- Severe overcrowding – up to 30 people in each cell
- Waiting weeks to shower
- Not enough mattresses for each prisoner
- Minimal food
- Make officers present during medicals
- Difficulty accessing women’s hygiene items
This is not care. This is cruelty.
‘This government is choosing incarceration over safety, surveillance over support, and punishment over justice. Half of those imprisoned in the NT are on remand—still legally innocent. Yet they are being treated as disposable,’ said Tabitha Lean.
‘The NT Government’s carceral obsession has created the exact conditions the NT Police Association now warns could lead to deaths in custody. Aboriginal people are dying. Aboriginal women are being disappeared into systems that were never built for their survival,’ said Tabitha Lean.
‘We must be unequivocal: this is not a failure of justice. This is a justice system functioning exactly as it was designed—to punish and contain Black lives. This is a failure of political courage, a failure of moral responsibility, and a catastrophic failure of imagination,’ said Tabitha Lean.
‘The National Network demand the immediate repeal of harmful bail laws, a moratorium on the use of watch houses for prisoners, and a serious commitment to decarceration,’ said Tabitha Lean.
This is not justice. This is violence. And it must end.
For further comment, please contact Debbie Kilroy on 0419 762 474 and Tabitha Lean on 0499 780 226.
