Media release re: Ombudsman Report Exposes Inhumane Treatment in NT Watch Houses

8 December 2025

The Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Commission is deeply alarmed by the Ombudsman’s NT Watch House Investigation Report (tabled 27 November 2025), which exposes degrading, unsafe and inhumane conditions experienced by Territorians, overwhelmingly Aboriginal people, held for extended periods in NT Police watch houses.

The report documents conditions that fall far below domestic and international legal standards, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Mandela Rules, the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) and the Guiding Principles for Corrections in Australia. The Ombudsman formed the view that the conditions were “unreasonable and oppressive” and impacted people’s mental and physical health. The report describes conditions including:

• Severe overcrowding, with up to 17 people sharing a single cell.
• Open-air, exposed toilets with next to no privacy, often right next to where people slept.
• Drinking water available only from taps fixed above frequently used toilets
• Weeks without access to fresh air, sunlight, or recreation, and very minimal time outside of cells.
• Very limited access to showers, hygiene items or clean clothing.
• Lack of privacy and dignity for women, particularly in relation to menstruation.
• Constant artificial lighting causing sleep deprivation and impacting mental health.
• Very limited access to family contact or visits.
• Extended stays, including for women, for weeks at a time in facilities never designed for long-term detention.
• Where there is severe physical or mental suffering, some conditions described may amount to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment under OPCAT, and in extreme cases could potentially meet the threshold of torture.

NT Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, Jeswynn Yogaratnam said the report exposes systemic harms created by rushed laws, poor planning and inadequate investment in justice systems.

“Watch houses are not prisons. They were never designed to hold people for days, let alone weeks. Territorians sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder beside open toilets, drinking from taps above those toilets, and going without fresh air for weeks is not just a catastrophic failure of systems, it is a failure of our shared humanity. These conditions disproportionately punish Aboriginal Territorians and raise serious questions under OPCAT, the Anti-Discrimination Act (NT) and the Racial Discrimination Act (Cth). Race is a protected attribute, and subjecting one group to unreasonable and oppressive conditions in far higher numbers raises concerns about discriminatory policies and practices.”

The Commissioner further warned that “tough on crime” political messaging must not be used to justify oppressive treatment:

“Many people held in these conditions were on remand and had not been found guilty of any offence. The Government cannot trade away one group’s human dignity and right to presumed innocence under the guise of protecting others. Rights are not a zero-sum game.”

The NT ADC strongly supports NAAJA CEO Ben Grimes’ assessment that the entire justice ecosystem has been destabilised by successive legislative changes introduced without properly considering planning, implementation and flow-on impacts.

Integrity, independence and the need for a Human Rights Act

The Commissioner emphasised that this report demonstrates the indispensable role of independent integrity bodies:

“When we weaken or consolidate integrity agencies, we risk silencing the very bodies that protect our community when systems fail, and this is a prime example of the system catastrophically failing.”

The NT ADC also reiterates its long-standing support for a national Human Rights Act which would require public authorities to actively consider human rights in policy and decision making, allow oversight bodies such as the Ombudsman to examine whether those obligations were properly complied with, and provide individuals with enforceable avenues to challenge breaches. Such a framework strengthens accountability and oversight and helps prevent conditions such as those documented in the report from occurring in the first place

Support for the Ombudsman’s recommendations

The Ombudsman has made 16 recommendations, including the urgent removal of all Territory prisoners from Police watch houses and the establishment of minimum standards for any future overflow scenarios.

Commissioner Yogaratnam said:

“These conditions must never occur again. I strongly support all recommendations and call on the NT Government to implement them immediately. This is a matter of basic rights, dignity and humanity.”