The ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body (ATSIEB) and ACT Council of Social Services released a report on Thursday based on a forum held earlier this year marking 25 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

It urged the government to address systemic problems in the justice system to address "racism and inherent bias"; invest more in social support and health services to address the underlying causes; properly resources indigenous services in the ACT; and called for leadership from the territory government.

While the government recently announced a long-awaited justice reinvestment program, Yarrabi Bamirr, ATSIEB chairman Ross Fowler said there was more to be done to reduce the disproportionately high indigenous imprisonment rate.

Mr Fowler welcomed the program, but said one of the key drivers of imprisonment rates was the high rate of Aboriginal children in child protection in the ACT and it too needed addressing.

"We need to get more indigenous children in the care of indigenous families or kinship arrangements, because the longer we leave kids in non-indigenous care, the longer they are going to have a deep absence in their lives.

"That absence is their indigenous culture and if they don't fill that with appropriate culture, they will go searching for it, and for a child in care who goes searching for something missing in their life, a lot of things could fill that gap instead."

Mr Fowler said the report was calling for more than a superficial approach to the problems facing Canberra's Aboriginal community.

He said while racism could take an "obvious" form - such as a police officer searching a young indigenous person in public without cause - it also could take the form of an "indirect and hidden agenda".

"The police can be part of that process, in some, but not all cases, there has been over-policing and when we talk about recidivism that often plays a role," he said.

"But what it is is that people sometimes use their power, and it could be the courts, police, they seem to forget that whether they've done the wrong thing people do commit crimes, but at the centre of this are people."

Mr Fowler said other changes needed to include adequately resourcing indigenous organisations, as well as rebuilding the Aboriginal Justice Service that was axed "in unfortunate circumstances" a few years ago, and doing more work in schools to address racism there.

He also challenged the ACT Government's oft-repeated line as being one of the most progressive governments in the country - citing such initiatives as widening the grounds for discrimination claims in Canberra.

"The point at the end of the day is governments need to be careful about these claims," he said.

"I'd actually challenge them on that - how have they been progressive when they have one of the highest, disproportionate rates of indigenous incarceration in the country?

"How can the government make statements like that?"

The ACT Government did not respond to questions for this report.