The ACT has the lowest incarceration rate in the country, but continues to struggle with high numbers of unsentenced prisoners, according to new statistics.
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Data issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday showed the territory holds 87 prisoners for every 100,000 adults. That is the lowest rate in Australia, and is about half the national average of 166 prisoners per 100,000 people.
It is also well below Victoria, which recorded the second lowest incarceration rate of 107 prisoners per 100,000 people.
But the ACT statistics are marred by a relatively high number of unsentenced prisoners being held in the ACT.
Nearly 40 per cent of all prisoners were still awaiting sentence in the territory.
That's the highest rate of unsentenced prisoners in the country, well above the next highest state of South Australia, where 32 per cent of prisoners were unsentenced.
The proportion of unsentenced prisoners in the ACT has been the highest in the nation for five years straight, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures.
The number of unsentenced prisoners has continued to increase marginally, with a 1.1 per cent rise in the ACT over 2010-11.
Shadow attorney-general Vicki Dunne used the statistics to criticise the Government over delays in the Supreme Court.
''Canberra's lengthy remand times are partly due to ACT Labor's failure to address the Supreme Court backlog,'' she said.
''The ACT's justice system is in crisis when it can take two years or more for cases to actually make it into the courtroom and then long waits for reserved judgments to be delivered.''
The total number of prisoners in the ACT has also gradually increased.
In June 2010, the ACT had 220 total prisoners, increasing to 233 in March 2011 and 244 in June 2011.
That represents an 11 per cent increase in prisoner numbers over 2010-11. Despite those increases in prisoners, the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders incarcerated fell by 6 per cent.
The ACT had 56 persons in periodic detention on an average day in the June 2011 quarter.
The NT had the highest imprisonment rate of 748 prisoners per 100,000 adult population.