Lawyers fear the federal government will not recommit funds to a vital 24-hour phone service helping Indigenous detainees in the ACT, saying the consequences would be "unthinkable and regressive".
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The phone line alerts Aboriginal lawyers when an individual is taken into custody, allowing them to check on their welfare and provide legal support.
It was set up in the wake of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which investigated almost 100 cases in the 1980s.
The custody notification service operates 24/7 in NSW and the ACT, taking 300 calls on average per week, including between 20 to 50 in the territory.
There have been no Aboriginal deaths in custody since it began in 2000.
However the future of the service is now uncertain.
Federal funding, allocated through one-off grants since 2008, is due to cease in less than a week.
That's prompted a campaign to save what the ALS describes as a simple yet "devastatingly effective" service.
A petition calling on the government to fund the service already has 37,000 signatures.
ACT-based ALS lawyer Michael Lalor said the service was vital in supporting support vulnerable Indigenous detainees.
"The evidence before the Royal Commission was that for historical and cultural reasons, Aboriginal people were very intimidated and scared in police stations," he said.
"There were more people killing themselves and self-harming... they were pleading guilty to things or making admissions just to get out of there.
"Certainly the welfare check that, at the very least, is worth doing, it has a big impact."
In NSW, police are legally compelled to call the service when an Indigenous person is taken into custody, unlike the ACT, where it is simply police protocol.
Mr Lalor said that the organisation was hoping for a last-minute reprieve, particularly given Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion had voiced his support for a similar model to operate in Western Australia in October.
"It's a system that's working pretty well I think, there's a few things to be ironed out in the ACT, but at the moment there's a protocol there in the AFP, and it's certainly supported by the ACT Government," he said.
"Obviously we'd like it in law, we'd like the procedures in law and that might happen, but it's going to make it very hard to happen if they cut the funding."
Acting ALS chief executive officer Kane Ellis said the service cost a relative pittance, and that ceasing it would be "unthinkable and regressive".
"For nearly the same cost as holding two juveniles in detention for one year, the CNS helps over 15,000 Aboriginal men, women and children each year with legal advice and a welfare check," Mr Ellis said.
"The number of Aboriginal men, women and children in prison is already exponentially high. Without the CNS, that number will rise even further."
