ACT government flags review of Indigenous incarceration rates

But Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health and Community Services chief executive Julie Tongs said reviews would not solve the problem.

"We don't need anymore reviews. We know what the problems are, start to address them. Don't keep throwing money at consultants to tell us what we already know," Ms Tongs said.

"They're getting richer and our mob are just getting locked up."

Ms Tongs, who wrote to Mr Ramsay this month calling for a review, pointed to the Productivity Commission's 2020 report on government services, which found Aboriginal imprisonment in the ACT had grown by 279 per cent between 2009 and 2019, more than any other state.

"There's so much work to be done. And we're not just talking about the justice system, we're also talking about the police. They're the ones picking these people up, taking them before the courts. And then they're ending up incarcerated," she said.

Ms Tongs said prisoners in the ACT said they found it to be a good facility, but management and rehabilitation programs were lacking.

"We had the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, if we'd implemented that, we'd be a lot further down the track now. How many different ways can you write the same recommendation?" Ms Tongs said.

In reply to Ms Tongs' letter, Mr Ramsay and Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Rachel Stephen-Smith said more needed to be done to address prison over-representation.

"We share your concern with these figures, including the high Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incarceration rates, the significant rate increases and, in particular, the high rates of recidivism," Mr Ramsay and Ms Stephen-Smith said in a joint letter.

The pair said the review needed to be led by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

Mr Ramsay and Ms Stephen-Smith said the government was committed to its justice reinvestment approach to deliver a 25 per cent reduction in recidivism rates by 2025.

"We acknowledge that there is more to be done and that future work must be well-informed and appropriate," the letter, provided to The Canberra Times, said.

Ms Tongs, writing in the Winnunga Nimmityjah newsletter this month, said she would not rest until the ACT government acted on the over-imprisonment of Aboriginal people in the territory "with determination and honesty".

The average daily number of Aboriginal people in the Alexander Maconochie Centre in 2009 was 29 in 2009-10; the number had risen to a daily average of 110 by 2018-19.

"The rate of increase in Aboriginal incarceration in the ACT, which is five times higher than in the rest of Australia, is not just a stain on Canberra's reputation but clearly reflects a justice system which has failed and continues to fail the Aboriginal community," Ms Tongs said.

Earlier this month, the ACT government committed an extra $1.5 million to the Yarrabi Bamirr program, which partners social health workers with Aboriginal and Torres Strait families to address housing, health, justice, education and employment issues to keep people out of prison.

Corrections Minister Shane Rattenbury at the time said the ACT needed to change its approach to reduce Aboriginal incarceration rates.

"The rate of Aboriginal incarceration in the ACT is unacceptable. As I've said before, we can't keep doing what we've done because that has produced that result," Mr Rattenbury said.

Mr Rattenbury also noted his frustration after the ACT decided not to take a position on raising the age of criminal responsibility after a national decision on the age was delayed until next year.

A 2016 independent inquiry into the death of a 25-year-old Aboriginal man, Steven Freeman, at the Alexander Maconochie Centre found wide-ranging failures in the ACT's justice system.

The inquiry, led by former integrity commissioner Philip Moss, found Mr Freeman's broader treatment in the ACT justice system was deficient. The ACT government in 2017 accepted eight of the nine recommendations made by Mr Moss.