The ACT should ban the use of spit hoods in the territory, a coalition of human rights and justice groups has told a United Nations committee investigating Australia's compliance with an anti-torture convention.
The groups also highlighted their concern over the "disproportionate" use of strip searching on First Nations women in the ACT's prison and the low minimum age of criminal responsibility.
The group is made up of Change The Record, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services and the Human Rights Law Centre.
Change The Record executive officer Sophie Trevitt said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and adults were locked away in Australian police and prison cells each day in horrifying and appalling conditions.
"The uncomfortable truth is that so long as governments insist on discriminatory, punitive, law-and-order policies they will never close the gap and we will continue to see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, mothers and children driven into Australia's overcrowded prison system," Ms Trevitt said.
The group made 20 recommendations to the United Nations committee, covering issues of mass imprisonment, deaths in custody, torture and its prevention across Australia.
The group called on the committee to recommend all Australian levels of government ban the "barbaric and archaic" use of solitary confinement, routine strip searching and spit hoods; raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14; and repeal "dangerous and discriminatory" bail laws.
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services executive officer Jamie McConnachie said independent bodies were needed to monitor the treatment and conditions of people detained in Australia.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Urgent action is needed to protect the rights and lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people," Mr McConnachie said.
The Commonwealth government ratified the United Nations' optional protocol to the convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (OPCAT) in December 2017. It must establish a national preventative mechanism by January 20, 2023.
The ACT government designated the independent Office of the Inspector of Correctional Services, the ACT Human Rights Commission, and the ACT Ombudsman to the Commonwealth as the borders for its preventative mechanism in January.
Corrections Minister Mick Gentleman said at the time the ACT was well placed to support the national implementation of the OPCAT.
ACT Greens backbencher Andrew Braddock is expected to introduce a bill to the Legislative Assembly to force a debate on whether spit hoods should be banned for use in the ACT.
ACT Policing's Chief Police Officer, Neil Gaughan, in August revealed police had used a spit hood to restrain a 16-year-old girl who had been arrested in the city centre, which prompted fresh calls for the devices to be banned locally.
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