By John Lawrence
“No one really knows a nation until one has been inside its jails” – Nelson Mandela
OPINION: Three recent NT News reports have revealed the debased and dysfunctional condition of the NT Department of Corrections. Corrections fits consistently within the NT Criminal Legal System’s continued descent into decrepitude. This descent is similarly evident in Territory Education, Health and its overall political system.
The NT Ombudsman’s report into conditions at the local watch houses, the product of a four-month investigation, was tabled in Parliament on November 27 and reported across the front page of the NT News the next day. It graphically informed the community how some sentenced prisoners and “remandees” (people arrested and refused bail by the police) have been “accommodated” in Police watch houses owing to the lack of room in the Darwin and Alice Springs jails.
The overcrowding flows from the Government’s “tough” new laws to reduce crime and make our community safer.
Over one per cent of the NT population is now in jail.
The Chief Minister recently tried to claim, through some recent crime statistics [for what they’re worth!], that crime has reached a “turning point” thanks to the NT’s incarceration orgy.
The statistics show a drop in property crimes but also an increase in crime generally in Palmerston, Katherine, and Tennant Creek. They also show generally an increase in sexual assaults and crimes involving the harming and endangering of persons. Her claims appear to be what they nowadays call “fake news”, which has been ably aided and abetted by the NT News’ “journalists”, along with the pro-government NT News misleading front page headline: “Crime Fight Packs Punch”.
The Ombudsman’s report exposed the conditions in those watch houses as inhumane and clearly unlawful. The colour photographs showed crammed “prisoners” lying shoulder to shoulder on mattresses like sardines in a tin.
Some were women. Some were men. Some were sentenced prisoners. Most were refused-bail “detainees”; 90 per cent were Indigenous. Some were found to be suffering from mental illness. All are human beings.
The report described their conditions thus: they were kept in watch house cells 24/7. Their fluorescent ceiling lights remained on 24/7, so they were in constant light. They had little to no access to the outside world and fresh air, never mind walking on grass. Typical was one cell of 16 men with one toilet for all 16. These men had to do all their toilet activities in that one open toilet in front of everyone else. That toilet bowl was frequently blocked and the only available drinking water in that cell was one bubbler positioned directly above that one toilet. Gruesome indeed.
The women’s cells were similarly overcrowded, with some seen to be stained with menstrual blood. At one point, a pregnant lady was detained for two weeks. Some of the detained had been kept in these conditions for months.
The report concluded the conditions were “unreasonable and oppressive”, with the prisoners being subjected to “extreme confinement”, “sleep deprivation”, “inhumane toilet access” leading to “widespread deterioration of physical and mental health”. These conditions, not surprisingly, contributed to assaults on Police and Correctional staff and amongst the prisoners themselves.
UN blocked from observing conditions
Here’s how current things have changed.
Unlike in the past, none of this exposure presents any political concerns for the CLP Government who are happy to own it. Nowadays, if anything, it’s seen as a vote winner.
Corrections Minister Gerard Maley proudly embraces this situation: “We make no apologies for restoring the rights of the victims and the community, and as I’ve said many times, if you do the wrong thing, we will find you a bed” (Or at least a mattress!).
The media “spinners” in Corrections moved into gear after the report was made public, announcing the numbers have now been reduced by moving them into the old Berrimah Prison, which had been declared unfit for purpose in 2012 – 13 years ago. Apparently Berrimah is now holding 600 prisoners in conditions unknown to the general public. This classic media spin tactic was initially effective, however there can be no doubt the watch houses will be utilised like this again in the near future.
The Ombudsman’s report coincided with an arranged legal visit from the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention who had been invited here by the Federal Government to make their inspections of Territory detention facilities.
It didn’t happen. The Northern Territory Government quickly stepped in and put a stop to it on the basis of “staff safety concerns and operational concerns” which was media advisor “lie talk”.
In between this, it was also reported in the NT News that the NT Coroner had been sitting on the tragic death of the disabled prisoner, Wayne Hunt, whose treatment by Corrections Officers whilst experiencing a medical episode prior to his death, was clearly “all wrong” (my words and emphasis).
One could go on but then, let’s face it, I’ve been going on, and on, and on, for years. Writing articles and talking to the media describing how this unthinkable decline in the quality and standards within our legal system has continued for years.
Of course, continuing to reveal the truth about this decline – our decline – implicates and discomfits many of the players who are, and have been, responsible for this deterioration. Many have personally benefited while rising to the top. Many of them have since retired and flown south to enjoy their generous retirement packages.
This is a Mirror
The real story here is actually not the decline and collapse of our legal system. The real story is that the conditions we keep prisoners in says far more about us than those depicted. This story is about us and what we’ve become.
Nelson Mandela was not alone in revealing what our jail conditions say about a country and its people. Conservative champion Winston Churchill, when British Home Secretary, put it this way:
“The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.”
Those conditions and the treatment as revealed in this 2025 report are, to any reasonable observer, backward. Which simply means we have become backward.
This 2025 story illustrates how people now watch mediocrity, the suffering of others and injustice with little interest, and thereby little response or reaction. The lack of response and real reaction encapsulates the chronic current impotence of contemporary Australians.
That is a damnation on Australian men and women. Our shocking indifference to the suffering of others, and injustices generally, reveals we have become significantly dehumanised. The obvious and shameful explanation is we have all become so self-centered and selfish that we no longer have any interest or inclination to actually help other people in need. We seriously lack moral courage. This trajectory is a death dive for us as a species.
This feature is also evidenced in the recent horror that is Israel’s war on Gaza. “War” isn’t really the word; massacre would be more accurate.
When the crime of Genocide was created, following the horrific discovery of the attempted industrial annihilation of European Jewry by the Nazis during the Second World War, it was named “The Crime of Crimes”. The World’s leaders, as one, set up new International Legal Machinery to prevent it ever happening again. “Never Again” was the war cry as the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and later the International Criminal Court were established with significant input from Australian leaders at the time.
The current two-year genocide by the Israeli Government on Gaza is beknown to most Australians. Most of us have watched it, in all its horror, on our screens every day. It is unequivocally genocide. There can be no debate about that. The evidence is overwhelming. That is not fake news.
And although it’s hard to believe, it is in fact the truth. There’s that ‘truth’ word again. The current Israeli government, under Netanyahu and his supporters, have committed evil upon Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Their “crime of crimes” includes the murder of over 20,000 Palestinian children. Israel tells the world that it is being done in self-defence, a claim which is dishonest, unedifying and shameful.
Australia, unlike most other Nations, supports what Israel, with America’s support, has done. We now stick out, compared with most other countries who have condemned it. For over two years now, Australians have allowed our Government to ally with Israel, directly and indirectly, in its commission of genocide over Palestinians in Gaza.
Australian Commonwealth Criminal Law covers the crime of genocide and Australia has arguably become complicit in its commission. We have done nothing to stop it happening. Foreign Secretary Wong and Prime Minister Albanese have frequently explained why Australia is doing this, and none of what they say makes any sense to me. It seems to me, as a lawyer, that our Government and others should now be investigated by our Federal Police Force for committing the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, all of which are outlawed by the Australian Commonwealth Criminal Code.
Our Impotence
And so, similar to the conditions of remandees in Police watch houses, the evil that has been a two-year genocide committed upon the innocent men, women, and children of Gaza, has elicited little effective reaction or response from Australians. In fairness, 250,000 did march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in May to protest against the slaughter and there have been similar marches and rallies across the country, but to absolutely no effect. Our representative Government continues to do nothing to thwart Israel’s commission of genocide. Our alliance with Israel and the USA continues unabated. We as a people seem impotent to stop our country doing this.
Again, all of this shines a light on how Australians present as human beings in 2025. Our passive reaction to injustices continues to grow. Although history tells us that all progress has been achieved by action and struggle, all we now seem to do is scroll, binge watch and buy stuff.
The Ombudsman’s report on how the NT keeps its prisoners in 2025 reveals a system which is backward—and that system is our system. The decline of our entire criminal legal system into its current condition similarly reveals that we have become backward. This situation has become accepted as the norm. Judges and practitioners have adapted.
Today’s “normal” is atrocious but most people accept it as normal, and therefore good to go. Nothing to see here, apparently. If we consider these inadequacies, injustices and shortfalls satisfactory, we are cooked. That is a terminal condition. Our passive reaction to cruelty and injustice committed against others reveals that we have become fatally complacent and willfully deluded. “Near Enough is Good Enough” is now the mantra of the NT Legal System.
Forget “The Pursuit of Excellence.” We do still know what is right and wrong, but we now choose to not do the right thing. We have let ourselves go and become lesser.
John Lawrence is a legal practitioner whose career began in the Territory in 1987 as a Crown Prosecutor, five years later becoming the Solicitor in Charge of NAALAS, now NAAJA. He later joined the Independent Bar where he has remained for 28 years. He was appointed Senior Counsel in 2010 and has featured in many high-profile cases, including several Royal Commissions of Inquiry. He has served as President of the NT Bar Association as well as the Criminal Lawyers Association NT (CLANT) and as a Director of the Law Council of Australia.
John has written numerous articles for various national publications over the years, mostly on justice issues. He has been a passionate advocate for human rights, the rule of law and the rights of all Territorians, having spent a large part of his career representing Indigenous people and organisations in their struggle against disadvantage and injustice.
His regular column for the NT Independent is called Se Acabo. This article was published as Se Acabo: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what has become of us all? on 22 December 2025.
Diana Rickard‘s reply on December 22, 2025 at 12:26 pm
Thanks for this heartfelt article, John. Like you and many others, I’ve been getting angrier and less peaceful over the callous and careless way the CLP government is taking us back to the Middle Ages and treating people and other animals as if they are worthless. I’m wondering when the witch trials will start.
The Minister for Corrections is a pig shooter. He takes pride in standing with his high-powered rifle beside a slaughtered animal he has been responsible for killing. I seriously wonder how such people can live with themselves but – judging by the amount of facebook admirers agreeing with the ‘right to bear arms’ and the ‘right to hunt’, self-abasement has become the only rule to base a ‘civilised’ life-style on. Dignity and respect have no meaning anymore. A mindset that agrees with people being treated as ‘less than human’ because they aren’t ‘like us’, dehumanises those who kill and torture for pleasure or stand and watch this happening.
To quote Paulo Friere: ‘Dehumanisation, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanises the oppressed’.
Indeed, let them look into the mirror and see what monsters they’re creating.