‘Locking them up is not the answer’: Chief Minister reveals her thoughts on the NT crime crisis

As the NT’s prison population reaches record highs, and crime rates continue to climb, Chief Minister Eva Lawler has revealed how she believes the crisis can be fixed.

The Chief Minister is willing to build more prisons, but says education is the key to tackling crime – highlighting her government’s balancing act in an increasingly divisive crime debate.

Crime rates in the Territory have skyrocketed over the past decade, and the CLP is hoping its promise to do “whatever it takes” to “take back our streets” will see Labor ousted in this year’s NT election.

Since 2013 property crime has increased by almost a third, reported domestic violence assaults are up by 62 per cent, and sexual assaults are up 13 per cent.

At the same time, the Territory’s prison system is the most overcrowded it has ever been, with hundreds more inmates than cells were designed to hold.

More people are in prison in the NT than ever before, but crime rates continue to rise. Picture: Mark Brake

“People, they’ll go ‘Lock ‘em up’ – yeah we are locking them up; that is not the answer,” Chief Minister Eva Lawler told the NT News.

“As a leader, you want to see crime figures decreasing, not going up – but we do have very complex social issues.

“If I look at the work of government, it is around driving the economy, it is around improving social outcomes for people, it is also around preserving the environment and getting to net zero.”

Of these “top pillars”, improving social outcomes “absolutely” stands out for the new Chief Minister.

Chief Minister Eva Lawler. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

“To me, the solutions are around education long term, getting kids to school, and that’s been a really difficult task,” Ms Lawler said, speaking as both former Education Minister and a former schoolteacher and principal.

“It is (about) parents valuing education as well. To me, that comes down to getting more people working, so they’re getting up in the morning, and so their kids are then going to school.”

Ms Lawler praised initiatives such as Families as First Teachers, a learning engagement program which has been rolled out in 55 centres across the NT; the RATE program aimed at boosting the number of remote Aboriginal teachers; and the NT’s four high school STEAM centres increasing students’ pathways to jobs.

“The issue of crime is one that’s vexatious and difficult,” she said.

“If the CLP tell you that they have an answer, and that answer around attendance is truancy officers, anybody who’s worked in education in the Territory will just laugh.”

Ms Lawler said getting kids to school was the long term solution to crime. Picture: Sierra Haigh

While locking people up was “not the ideal”, building more prisons was “always on the cards”, Ms Lawler admitted.

“It’s part of that immediacy of providing the community respite and trying to make people understand that when they do something wrong, there will be consequences,” she said.

Two new youth detention centres are expected to open this year in Alice Springs and Darwin. The Top End facility will replace the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre which Ms Lawler promised would be shut for good by the end of the year, months behind schedule and seven years after a royal commission declared it “wholly inappropriate”.

Extra modular buildings planned for Darwin’s adult prison will add 64 beds, and a new 96-bed block in Alice Springs is expected to open mid year.

Ms Lawler said the government was looking at cooling options for the Alice Springs prison, but would not commit to installing airconditioning in the facility.

“Prison is supposed to be a deterrent,” she said.

Ms Lawler promised Don Dale would be closed by the end of the year. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

As part of the government’s “immediate” response to crime, Ms Lawler also points to changes in the police force being implemented by Police Minister Brent Potter and Police Commissioner Michael Murphy – both of whom have been installed in their roles in the past six months.

She highlighted the government’s alcohol restrictions, many of which were brought in on urgency last year after the lapse of stronger futures saw a dramatic spike in offending.

It is not long before her answer turns back to education, however.

“The large percentage of people in prison are there because they’ve assaulted their partners, which is an absolute tragedy, and when you have alcohol those threats and the violence is escalated,” she said.

“So they’re the things that you work in schools to address – issues in your relationships and things like that have to start literally when a child is five: how do you resolve a conflict? Not by turning around and bashing someone.”