Rachel Mealey: There are fresh calls for specialised help for prisoners after more grim statistics showing most have an existing mental illness or substance use disorder. The Northern Territory-based research found almost two-thirds of the mostly Indigenous inmates had a mental health diagnosis compared with 43 per cent of the general population. But doctors say the NT has no secure forensic mental health facility, as Annie Guest reports.
Annie Guest: Working as a forensic psychiatrist in the Northern Territory, Dr Sarah Darrington noticed a lot of people in custody with a mental illness, so she embarked on research to quantify it.
Sarah Dorrington: About half of male prisoners and just over three-quarters of female prisoners have a mental illness of some description. So that could be substance use disorder, that could be depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, you name it, there’s someone in prison that has it.
Annie Guest: The research, published today in the journal Australian Psychiatry, analysed 310 adult prisoner files in 2024 and also found just over half of the men and nearly 70 per cent of the women had been diagnosed with substance misuse disorder. While less than two per cent had foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, Dr Darrington believes it’s much higher, but under-diagnosed in remote communities.
Sarah Dorrington: There’s a lot of complex reasons why they might develop these conditions and it’s usually a combination of things like genetics and family history, but also really representative of the ongoing impacts of trauma, historical disadvantage and sort of ongoing disadvantage, really.
Annie Guest: The Northern Territory’s incarceration rate is five times the national average and almost all inmates are Indigenous, that’s despite making up only about 25 per cent of the NT population. The majority of prisoners are men from remote communities for whom English is a second language and Dr Darrington says Indigenous women are particularly vulnerable.
Sarah Dorrington: Of course some of them have engaged in violent offending behaviour, but almost all of them, especially young women, have also been victims of trauma too.
Annie Guest: It’s a reality that Danica Winterton sees in her role supporting prisoners. The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency mental health worker says all the women are homeless.
Danica Winterton: I would say every one of the females that we work with has had their children removed and then grappling with that trauma that they can just never really shake.
Annie Guest: But Danica Winterton worries there’s very little targeted help.
Danica Winterton: We’ve got a lot of people who we see regularly and we can see them just deteriorating because they’re not getting any support.
Annie Guest: Dr Darrington agrees, calling on the NT government to equip prisons with secure forensic mental health facilities and specialised services to support prisoners with a mental illness or substance misuse disorder.
Sarah Dorrington: If people are offending because they’ve got a mental illness or they are homeless or in poverty, or they’re traumatised and they’re struggling to manage that trauma through using drugs and alcohol, putting them in prison isn’t going to change any of that. It’s actually just going to make things worse in the long run.
Annie Guest: Instead, Dr Darrington says addressing homelessness and psychosocial disadvantage will help keep communities safer. The NT government has been contacted for comment.
Rachel Mealey: Annie Guest reporting with Tahnee Jash.