00:00 Fronting the corridor and vowing to do better, the boss of the
00:05 territory's correction system painted a picture of life behind the wire.
00:09 The Alice Springs Correctional Centre has capacity for 680 prisoners.
00:14 Today, it's full.
00:16 In Darwin, where there's space for 1,337 prisoners, there's 1,333, plus another 52 sentenced
00:26 prisoners being held in police watch houses.
00:29 More than half of those behind bars are there because of domestic violence.
00:33 The commissioner said both prisons are being renovated to increase capacity, and that if
00:38 he could close the watch houses tomorrow, he would.
00:42 But the number of prisoners in the territory, predominantly Indigenous, is predicted to
00:46 keep growing.
00:48 The commissioner telling the court, ultimately, intervention is needed before someone lands
00:52 in jail.
00:53 There needs to be a shift in the community's thinking and behavioural approach of men towards
00:59 women.
01:00 Each of the men who killed the four women at the centre of the coroner's inquiry had
01:04 prior convictions for violence and had spent time in territory prisons.
01:09 Some had access to the rehabilitation programs, others didn't.
01:12 The coroner has previously told the court the prison system doesn't appear to be working.
01:18 Commissioner Varley conceded more resources are critical.
01:22 I don't know what the number is, but others have called for needs-based funding, and I
01:26 can't think of a better example of the need.
01:30 Also backing the cry for needs-based funding for a jurisdiction with the highest rates
01:34 of domestic and family violence in the country, and the lowest share of the national money
01:39 pool, is those on the front line, whose critical services are constantly overwhelmed.
01:45 When we turn women away, we turn them away with the knowledge that they might not come
01:50 back to us.
01:51 The evidence before the coroner has a consistent theme.
01:55 For front line services, there's not enough money to keep women safe.
01:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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