Just Reinvest NSW Statement on BOCSAR media release: ‘Surge in Aboriginal incarceration pushes NSW prison population to five-year high’

The custody rates released by BOCSAR today raise serious concerns about how the NSW Government is approaching its own commitments to reducing Aboriginal overincarceration and overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in the child protection system.

We have seen divergent trends of sentencing between convictions (decreasing) and remand (increasing) of Aboriginal people for some time in NSW – according to BOCSAR in the five years to March 2025, the number of adult Aboriginal remandees grew by 63.0% to 1,936. A lot of this increase is due to domestic violence related incidents which means on the one hand an understanding needs to be formed/developed on what is being achieved, as it relates to preventative measures and programs. On the other hand, elevates the deeply concerning issue surrounding the link between DV incidents, and entry into the NSW Out-of-Home-Care system and their involvement in the criminal justice system.

A positive response to consider is justice reinvestment, that works with Aboriginal communities in a place-based, community-led and data driven approach that empowers and resources communities to identify solutions such as justice circuit breakers.

For example, ‘circuit-breaker’ activities that target preventive programming across issues which impact on people’s contact with the justice system, including education, health (including mental health and drug and alcohol treatment), employment, and disability all need to be identified across each community. These circuit breakers can help strengthen families and communities over the long-term so that we can stop the flow into custody, and for those in custody we focus on rehabilitation so when they go back into communities, those communities can be made stronger again.

There are only three Aboriginal communities in NSW that have been engaged in justice reinvestment initiatives on a multi-year basis with a further five who have only just begun their work with justice reinvestment approaches. Just Reinvest NSW strongly recommends that the NSW Government expands its support to Aboriginal communities and organisations supporting community backbone teams to deliver justice reinvestment initiatives that specifically work towards reducing the overincarceration of Aboriginal people in their communities.