00:00Well, the NT's prisoner population has surged to unprecedented levels in recent months, largely
00:08driven by the NT government's hardline approach to tackling crime.
00:13Since the country Liberal Party came to power, the government has lowered the age of criminal
00:18responsibility from 12 to 10, and has introduced tougher bail laws for both adults and children.
00:26These policies are leading to an enormous rise in prisoner numbers, with about 600 further
00:32prisoners being locked up over the past seven months.
00:36The majority of these prisoners are Aboriginal people, and about half of them are on remand,
00:42so they're still awaiting to have their day in court.
00:45The problem has become so bad that there's not enough room in actual correctional facilities
00:51to house these prisoners.
00:53So we're seeing a situation where we've got prisoners crammed into police watch houses
00:58because there just aren't enough beds to house them.
01:01In one recent incident, an 11-year-old Aboriginal girl spent two days and one night locked up
01:08inside one of these watch houses in Palmerston, where she was kept in a cell by herself with
01:14the lights on 24 hours a day, hearing screaming from other prisoners who were being brought
01:19into the watch house.
01:20This situation has prompted Anthony Bevan, who's the chief executive of NAJA, Australia's
01:26Aboriginal Legal Service, to call for the federal government to actually suspend Commonwealth
01:32funding for NT police's remote policing and other justice-related operations, until the
01:38NT government changes its attitude and its approach to tackling crime, which he says hasn't
01:43actually reduced re-offending.
01:45Here's what Anthony Bevan had to say earlier.
01:48We're saying that if those funds are Commonwealth funds, the Commonwealth should be putting some
01:55conditions on the table to say we shouldn't be locking young kids up, we shouldn't be locking
02:00Aboriginal people up in record numbers, just because there's an election mandate.
02:06So, Sam, how have the Northern Territory and federal governments responded to this?
02:12Well, the NT's Attorney General, Marie Claire Boothby, has condemned these calls for a federal
02:19intervention.
02:20She's gone as far as labelling the comments as utterly absurd.
02:24In a statement, she said threatening to cut essential funding to remote policing is counterproductive,
02:30dangerous and undermines community confidence.
02:34She said there is no alternative.
02:36Those who break the law will be arrested.
02:38In response to concerns about the overflowing prison numbers inside watch houses, she said
02:43that the NT government is working to expand the prison system.
02:47She says that they expect about 238 more prisoner beds will come online at an adult prison on
02:53the outskirts of Darwin by about mid-August.
02:56As for the federal response, Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Malindiri McCarthy agreed with
03:02NAJA's characterisation of the problem and said that, you know, a police watch house really
03:09is no place for a child.
03:11And she also said that the reason why this is happening is largely because of the NT government's
03:15hardline approach to crime and these tough on crime policies.
03:18In a statement, she says there's something very wrong with the Northern Territory justice
03:22system when an 11-year-old girl is held in an adult police watch house for two days and
03:27one night.
03:28Senator McCarthy says she's aware of the issues and she's been talking to the Northern Territory's
03:32police union.
03:33However, she did stop short of joining these calls for a federal intervention.
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