New prisons for the NT are a costly bet on a failing system

The Northern Territory Government's announcement of a new 1200-bed men's prison and 200-bed women's prison in Darwin is a damning indictment of the failure of its punitive policy settings.

The Justice Reform Initiative said the new prisons would cost Territory taxpayers heavily, both through the direct financial burden on already limited government resources and through the impact on community safety as more people cycle through prison and come out more likely to reoffend.

Justice Reform Initiative Executive Director Dr Mindy Sotiri said building more prisons would further entrench the ‘revolving door’ back into prison while wilfully ignoring the evidence about what actually reduces crime.

“The Northern Territory already has one of the most incarcerated populations in the world. Building more prisons and putting more Territorians in prison will not reduce crime and it is incredibly expensive compared to what the evidence shows actually works to build community safety,” Dr Sotiri said.

“The corrections system is under pressure because of policies that over-use imprisonment and under-invest in the community-based responses that the evidence shows reduce crime. It is totally irresponsible justice policy to pour taxpayer money into expensive new infrastructure instead of addressing the causes of the problem.

“The evidence is very clear: going to prison increases the likelihood of future offending. If we want to get serious about community safety, we need to invest in the underlying drivers of incarceration, rather than simply building and filling more prison cells.

“While there is a need to respond to overcrowding, the real solution is to reduce the number of people going into prison in the first place.

"Building new prisons is like spending money on a fleet of ambulances to sit at the bottom of a cliff. It does nothing to address the structural and systemic issues that are pushing people into prison in the first place, but diverts government spending from family violence programs, mental health, education, family support, First Nations place based responses, and other key programs in the community which are proven to reduce crime and make communities safer.”

The NT is Australia's most imprisoned jurisdiction, with an incarceration rate three times greater than anywhere else in Australia. The prison population surged by 24% in 2024-2025, driven by increasingly punitive legislative settings. The NT also has the highest recidivism rate, with six out of ten prisoners returning to jail within two years of release.

“Sending more people to prison and creating more prison beds to fill is not the answer to making communities safer,” Dr Sotiri said. “Real solutions are found in greater and targeted investment in community programs and First Nations-led initiatives that work to address offending behaviours and reduce contact with the justice system in the long term.”

The Justice Reform Initiative is calling for urgent investment in evidence-based alternatives to incarceration, including diversion programs, community-based supports, and First Nations placed based strategies that have been shown to reduce offending and improve community safety.