Grassroots activists have formed Justice not Jails to counter the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party’s (CLP) punitive “tough on crime” approach.
The CLP’s regressive agenda, which includes bail reforms, came into force on January 6. They make it harder for First Nations children aged 10–17 years to obtain bail when charged with certain offences involving violence. They also categorise stealing as a “serious offence”.
Nearly 100% of children in NT detention centres, at any given time, are First Nations people.
The CLP’s bail reforms are part of a suite of punitive measures, introduced in haste in October. The government also lowered the age of criminal responsibility from 12 years to 10.
Justice not Jails spokesperson Natalie Hunter is a Nyikina woman and longtime Close Don Dale campaigner. “In the Northern Territory, Black children are dehumanised at every turn,” she said on January 7.
“They are stolen from their families and severed from their culture. They’re left out of education. They’re locked up and treated like animals.”
The CLP’s social policy, which fines parents $370 when their children do not go to school, is based on a flawed ideology of individual responsibility that only serves to entrench vicious cycles of poverty, trauma and criminalisation, she said.
“For years, we have stood up to the NT government,” Hunter said. “We have tried to make them see sense; repeated the same facts and statistics and explained the evidence. We have told our own harrowing personal stories, hoping someone would listen.”
The same urgency with which the CLP has cracked down on what it calls “anti-social behaviour” has not been afforded to addressing the structural drivers of crime.
The rates of youth homelessness in the NT are almost 12 times the national average and social housing wait times are 6–10 years.
Tiwi woman Yvonne Dunn, another member of Justice not Jails, said: “Most of these kids are experiencing poverty, disability, removal, poor health, low education and trauma, all before 10 years old.
“And we expect a 10-year-old to be the bigger person, to always regulate their feelings, to never step out of line. Many children in remote communities also have a lack of understanding about the new laws. They believe it doesn’t affect them.”
Meanwhile, the CLP is promoting its carceral approach to community “safety”. Deputy Chief Minister Gerard Maley bragged on December 30 that prisoner numbers had increased by 84 (3.3%) in just six days, bringing the total to 2598 prisoners.
With characteristic cruelty, the CLP is also pushing ahead with plans to permanently transfer youth more than 1500 kilometres from the Alice Springs Youth Detention Centre to the Holtze Youth Justice Centre.
Dunn said it “will make it harder for family to visit, separating children from crucial family support and from their spiritual lineage.
“These new laws directly target Black children, especially those that come from remote communities. You have to be racist or ignorant to think these laws will benefit the community.”
Justice not Jails is calling for those funds currently being poured into the police force and new jails to instead be spent on helping communities lead changes that will make a long-term difference for community safety.
The advocacy organisation Justice Reform Initiative reported in 2022 that the NT is spending $122,496 a year ($335.88 a day) for each adult prisoner. For each child prisoner, the real cost is significantly higher — $1.4 million a year ($3,852 a day).
It called for “greater investment in policies and programs to break the cycles of disadvantage which kept bringing people back to prison at enormous cost to taxpayers”.
“Thirty years on from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and five years on from the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the NT, the lack of action in reducing over-representation is unacceptable.”
The Justice Reform Initiative said while there is no single “reform fix” to reduce prison numbers, “there are multiple proven, cost-effective alternatives that can both effectively reduce incarceration and improve community safety”.
The “tough on crime” rhetoric does not "make the community safer, nor does our current over-use of imprisonment”, it said.
It said First Nations organisations and communities want to end mandatory sentencing and raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 — the minimum age, developmentally and neurologically, that children could or should be held criminally responsible. It also called for evidence-based reforms “outside the justice system”, including addressing homelessness, social and cultural community connection and providing access to services and supports for mental health, cognitive impairment and problematic drug and alcohol use.
Justice not Jails supports grassroots initiatives to raise awareness about the destructive impacts of the CLP’s “tough on crime” agenda.
One such initiative is an open letter from frontline workers that calls for an end to mandatory sentencing for assaults and spitting. All NT workers are urged to sign and share the letter.
Hunter and Dunn urged “everyone”, including peak bodies, service providers and organisations funded to support children, “to stand up to this government”.
[Sign the open letter to NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro and CLP MLAs against mandatory sentencing here.]