Arrernte man Tyson Carmody has worked with many young men who struggle to see a life beyond the justice system.
"Often when we're talking with men and young people, we ask, 'Where to when you get out?," he said.
"And it's just, 'I don't know'."
The King's Narrative founder provides cultural counselling and coaching to Aboriginal men in Alice Springs.
He has worked with men caught in cycles of crime and incarceration in the outback town, many who were overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness.
"It's like they think, 'What's the point of hoping for more when I know when I get out, it's just going to be the same'," Mr Carmody said.
Report claims 'jailing is failing'
The Jailing is Failing: Alternatives to Incarceration in the Northern Territory report from the Justice Reform Initiative (JRI) — an Australian alliance calling for changes to the criminal justice system — claims the territory's prison system is not working.
"It's not working to rehabilitate. It's not working to keep the community safe," executive director Dr Mindy Sotiri said.
"And it's certainly not working to address the social drivers of why it is that people come into contact with the justice system."
According to JRI's report, the NT's imprisonment rate is five times the national average.
And while most jurisdictions saw drops in incarceration as pandemic lockdowns eased, it said the NT had seen a significant spike, with child imprisonment numbers doubling.
JRI said one in every 100 people in the NT were in jail, with territory detention centres continuing to burst at the seams.
The NT government has been contacted for comment.
Calls to divert prison funds
JRI claimed the NT was currently spending $300 million a year on imprisoning adults and children.
The alliance has called for the same figure to be invested over four years into evidence-based alternatives, which it claimed would break cycles of crime.
Dr Sotiri said there was little transparency in how governments funded such programs.
"Most of the time, they're funded for short periods of time, and they're funded in such ways that often don't build sustainability," she said.
"We've found that programs that have been successful often lose their funding."
JRI chair Robert Tickner is a former Aboriginal affairs minister in the Bob Hawke and Paul Keating Labor governments.
He urged the NT and federal governments to work with communities and Aboriginal organisations on the ground to address over-incarceration.
"We could be standing here in 50 years time, and nothing will have changed," Mr Tickner said.
"There needs to be that partnership with the Commonwealth because the Territory will never be able to do it on its own."
We 'have to change'
The NT has attracted frenzied national attention in recent months, as Central Australia grapples with a what has been labelled a crisis.
But amid calls for a "tough on crime" response, Dr Sotiri said this would only make matters worse.
She said recidivism rates in the NT were the highest in the nation.
"Of the people that are locked up now in the Northern Territory, three quarters have been in prison before," Dr Sotiri said.
"Prison is what we would call, 'criminogenic'. The experience of prison makes it more likely that someone will go back to prison, rather than less likely."
Mr Carmody said jail should not be the default response.
"Governments and everybody in the community need to think differently and act courageously around this," he said.
"If we keep doing the same thing, we're going to get the same results.
"We have to change if we want to see change."
