A marked increase in the number of First Nations people in custody over the last year has seen Indigenous incarceration rates reach their worst ever levels.
In figures released by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR), the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody can be seen to have increased more than 8 per cent over the 12 months from September 2023.
4103 people who identify as Indigenous were in custody in NSW as of September this year, representing 32 per cent of the total custody population.
First Nations people make up only 3.4 per cent of the state's population.
The increase, said BOSCAR, was almost entirely due to the growth in the number of people on remand, up 13 per cent over the same period.
Domestic violence is understood to be the main driver of the increase in people on remand.
Women make up 43 per cent of female custody population
Sienna Brown, Aboriginal specialist worker with the Wirringa Baiya Aboriginal Womens Legal Centre, said the figures were particularly discouraging for women.
"Over 43 per cent of the female population in custody are Aboriginal, and there's no sign of that slowing down," the Yuin Bundjulung woman told NITV.
"Most if not all of the women that we do work with ... have experienced either domestic violence, sexual violence, child sexual abuse or institutional abuse.
"If it's not one of those, it could be all of those types of violence."
Ms Brown also corroborated revelations from Victoria's Yoorrook Justice Commission which heard testimony of state police unfairly targeting women as perpetrators, rather than victims, of partner violence.
"We see a lot of misidentification of the perpetrators of domestic violence ... when in fact they are the primary victim in that relationship.
"In the early days of the new coercive control laws our concerns about the continued misidentification of Aboriginal women as perpetrators.
"We'd like to see increases in diversionary options so less Aboriginal women are in custody in the first place."
1 in 27 Aboriginal men in NSW in prison
The figures revealed a steady increase over the last four years, and now mean that one in every 27 Aboriginal men are currently incarcerated.
One in 280 Aboriginal women in NSW are also in custody.
Executive Director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Jackie Fitzgerald, told NITV that the bleak new record was "quite concerning".
"This change that we're seeing for Aboriginal people is all the more concerning because it's actually in contradiction to the general prison population trends.
"If we look at the total number of people in custody in NSW, it's actually 1000 fewer than prior to the pandemic ... but the Aboriginal inmate subset is actually moving in opposition to that.
"So we've seen a steady increase in Aboriginal prisoners while the general numbers are falling, which is another alarming point."
