Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been urged to convene national cabinet on First Nations incarceration and deaths in custody.
It follows the recent deaths in police custody of two Indigenous men in the Northern Territory.
"This is a matter for our Prime Minister," Robert Tickner, Justice Reform Initiative chair, told NITV News.
"On this issue I beg of him to show leadership to get this issue before the national cabinet."
Mr Tickner was the federal Indigenous Affairs minister in the Hawke Labor government during the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in custody.
He said "things have gotten worse" in the 34 years since the royal commission findings were handed down.
"We are at the lowest point we've been," Mr Tickner said.
"We've got now record levels of Aboriginal incarceration right around Australia, and we've got a youth detention centre which is totally failing," Mr Tickner said.
'We have been failing'
Hundreds of Australia's leading First Nations justice advocates, experts and community voices are gathering in Mparntwe Alice Springs this week for the 2025 Reintegration Puzzle Conference.
The national gathering aims to drive down incarceration rates and build safer communities through smarter, evidence-based justice reform.
For the first time it is being held in a jurisdiction where the rate of incarceration is five times the national average.
The Northern Territory is the second most imprisoned region in the world, following El Salvador.
Almost 90 per cent of adult prisoners and close to 99 per cent of youth incarcerated in the NT are Indigenous.
Community-led solutions
Arrernte man Tyson Carmody launched Kings Narrative in December 2021 after feeling frustrated at the lack of support services available for Indigenous men in the Northern Territory.
Kings Narrative is an Aboriginal-owned and operated social enterprise that delivers culturally appropriate counselling and coaching.
Mr Carmody said investment into community-led alternatives is the solution.
"When we get back to culture, we get back to healing and that's only going to benefit our families and our whole communities," he said.
Data from the Productivity Commission shows the country is not on track to reduce the rate of incarceration by at least 15 per cent by 2031 under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.
Since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, almost 600 First Nations people have died in police custody.
Mindy Sotiri is the executive director of the Justice Reform Initiative, a national alliance of justice advocates.
"We have been failing so many communities when it comes to over-incarceration and we have been failing Australians in terms of spending all of this money on a system that is absolutely broken," she said.
Rocket Bretherton has lived experience in the NT justice system and now works as the NT Coordinator for the Justice Reform Initiative.
"Jailing does not work, it only creates more trauma," Ms Bretherton told NITV News.
"People come out of jail more angry, angry at society, with nothing really to lose."
Children's commissioners united call to action
A coalition of First Nations Commissioners and Guardians are urging the Government to back evidence-based, community-led, solutions that keep children connected to their communities, their family and culture.
"Our children cannot wait any longer for the Government to act on earlier promises to ensure their human rights are protected,” Shahleena Musk, Northern Territory Children’s Commissioner said in a statement.
Productivity Commission data shows the target to reduce the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in detention by at least 30 per cent by 2031 is currently not being met nationally.
Over the past two years most jurisdictions have passed punitive laws that contravene the Closing the Gap agreement.
Queensland, the ACT, and the Northern Territory are showing increases in youth incarceration rates, while others, like NSW and Tasmania, have remained stagnant.
“We cannot continue to tinker at the edges while children are being harmed in systems designed to help them," Shona Reid, South Australia’s Guardian for Children and Young People said in a statement.
"It is not a lack of evidence holding us back - it is a lack of will."
A government spokesperson said in a statement to NITV that the Prime Minister wants to see governments of all persuasions and at all levels doing better at closing the gap, including on deaths in custody.
"The Commonwealth is delivering a justice reinvestment program to help avoid incarceration in the first place, rolling out a new remote jobs program with proper pay, and expects states to deliver their police and justice services in a way that keeps everyone safe," the spokesperson said.
