MEDIA RELEASE
Thursday 14 August 2025
The Aboriginal Legal Service says today’s data from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) should be a wake-up call to the NSW Government.
The number of children incarcerated in NSW has increased 34% since June 2023, with Aboriginal children making up 60% of all children in NSW youth prisons. Meanwhile, the proportion of Aboriginal adults in custody has risen to 33% – another shameful new record for NSW.
Karly Warner, CEO of the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) Limited and Chair of National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS), said these statistics expose the NSW Government's continued disregard for evidence-based policy.
"Despite committing to Closing the Gap in the over-imprisonment of Aboriginal people, the NSW Government continues to enact laws and policies that drive up mass incarceration,” Ms Warner said.
"Last year, the Premier introduced unprecedented child bail laws which have been condemned by legal and community experts for making it harder for children to access bail than adults charged with the same offences.
“The government knows that 85% of children refused bail under the new laws are Aboriginal, yet decided to extend them anyway for another three years. There is no evidence anywhere that tougher bail laws reduce crime. Our children are being sacrificed at the altar of the dangerous and regressive law-and-order politics sweeping the continent.”
Despite undisputed evidence that youth crime is trending down nationally, trends in reactive, punitive lawmaking have taken hold in the majority of Australian states and territories with devastating consequences.
“These worsening NSW statistics are a symptom of a national crisis. We need the Prime Minister to show leadership by putting justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on the agenda at National Cabinet and leading urgent, coordinated reform, utilising the advice of the National Justice Policy Partnership.
“We continue to call on the NSW Government to heed the evidence and invest in real solutions that actually work – like diverting kids away from prison and police responses and investing in therapeutic, community-led alternatives.
"Locking up children does not prevent crime. All it does is destroy lives and make communities more dangerous," Ms Warner said.
ENDS
Media contact: Alyssa Robinson 0427 346 017 [email protected]
