Rising numbers of people are languishing in prisons in the Northern Territory – sometimes for years – as they wait to be sentenced. The NT has the highest incarceration rate in the country, with almost half of all inmates on remand. With Courts clogged, lawyers are worried the territory government’s tough on crime platform will delay justice even longer.
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00:00I actually just wanted to give up because I just thought I've got no hope in health.
00:11And then it was thinking about my kids, that's when I thought, okay, I need to fight.
00:20I didn't know if I was going to be looking at 10 years, if I was going to be doing five
00:24years.
00:27Heavily pregnant and facing drug charges on remand, Crystal Roberts withdrew into herself
00:33as she prepared to give birth as a prisoner.
00:36With no guarantee she could keep her baby, the fear was palpable.
00:41I wasn't sure if I even wanted to hold him once I gave birth because I thought it might
00:49be too hard on me.
00:53A last minute push by lawyers allowed Crystal to keep Chase after he was born, the pair
00:59eventually serving out her sentence at home.
01:03Now under a supervision order, Crystal considers herself one of the lucky ones to make it out.
01:10I sign in fortnightly, I do drug testing weekly or fortnightly.
01:16I'm not allowed out after 10 o'clock at night.
01:21I'm wearing an ankle monitor as well.
01:23Crystal spent almost a year on remand waiting to be sentenced.
01:28In serious cases or when there is a flight risk, judges frequently detain people in jail
01:33while they await sentencing and are still legally innocent.
01:37But in the NT, courts have been unable to keep pace.
01:42It's taking longer to resolve matters and that is because the system is clogged.
01:50Statistics show record numbers of people who haven't been sentenced languishing in NT prisons.
01:57The average number of days people are spending on remand has also skyrocketed to 100.
02:02Late last month, prisoner numbers reached an all-time high, peaking to over 2,300, with
02:09almost half on remand or in watch houses.
02:12The system is at breaking point.
02:15There are people sitting in custody who have barely spoken to a lawyer, who have barely
02:19received legal advice.
02:21This year, Northern Territory courts lost almost $1.5 million in funding and it's getting
02:26harder for lawyers to access their clients in crowded jails.
02:30If we're unable to get those visits, it causes a further adjournment, which causes a longer
02:36remand time.
02:37We're not seeing that there's a huge increase in crime and certainly not to the same extent
02:42that we're seeing the remand population increase.
02:45That's where the real increase is happening and the pressure on the courts.
02:49The country Liberal Party won government on a platform of law and order, promising to
02:54drop the age of criminal responsibility to 10 years old and toughen bail laws.
02:59If they haven't been found guilty, then they've spent a really long time on remand in extremely
03:03onerous conditions that is really psychologically damaging.
03:10Prisoners on remand aren't given the same access to support as inmates who've been convicted.
03:15Crystal couldn't access rehabilitation inside jail because she hadn't been sentenced and
03:20says it made no sense.
03:23If there's say 80 women, you could expect that about 60 of those will be on remand and
03:3020 will be sentenced.
03:35Crystal now spends her days juggling full-time work around motherhood.
03:40She calls Chase her little miracle for giving her a new lease on life.
03:45I just see a lot of hope that wasn't there one year ago.
03:52A lot of opportunity.
03:54Giving it her all to rebuild, Crystal wants the system to change as well, for the sake
03:59of so many others.