Federal Government urged to act on 'national emergency' of Indigenous imprisonment

The national law council has declared the increasing number of Indigenous Australians behind bars a "national emergency."

The president elect of the Law Council of Australia, Duncan McConnel, said the Indigenous incarceration rate had doubled since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and urged the Federal Government to step in.

"This is a national crisis, requiring a national response and leadership from the Federal Government," he said.

Mr McConnel criticised Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion and urged the Federal Government to commit to justice targets.

"The recent announcement by Senator Scullion that the Federal Government is no longer considering justice targets in response to what can only be called a national emergency, is unexplained and unacceptable," he said.

"It appears to go against the minister's own advice on this issue.

"The Government's change of position comes in the wake of cuts to legal assistance services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples."

Mr McConnel also pointed to the impact of mandatory jail time.

"The Law Council considers that mandatory sentencing potentially results in harsh and disproportionate sentences where the punishment may not fit the crime," he said.

The council has raised the example of a 20-day mandatory sentence for a 15-year-old teenager for stealing pencils and stationery.

Indigenous young people 24 times more likely to be locked up

Mr McConnel's comments come after last week's Productivity Commission report, Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage, highlighted a startling increase in the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment_._

Among other concerns, the report showed one in four deaths in custody was of an Indigenous person, compared to the one in seven at the time of the 1991 Royal Commission.

It found Indigenous youths were being locked up at 24 times the rate of non-Indigenous young people, and there had been a 74 per cent increase in the number of Indigenous women going to jail since 2000.

Mr McConnel said those rates required urgent attention.

"Whether it's a royal commission or some sort of national discussion around why it is that we've got a dramatically increasing rate of imprisonment for Indigenous people in this country - [it] is well and truly needed," he said.

Gooda says PM must 'try harder'

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda said the sector was experiencing one of its "largest-scale upheavals" under the Coalition government.

Mr Gooda has released his 2014 report card, which refers to the Coalition's deep funding cuts, and the radical reshaping of existing programs and services.

The Government is rolling out around 150 programs into five main areas and cutting around half a billion dollars from program funding.

Mr Gooda said Prime Minister Tony Abbott had "got to try harder".

"I think his personal commitment is fairly clear, and I believe it," he said.

"I think what we're seeing now is almost a failure of implementation. You know, people understand there's got to be changes. There's got to be changes that people can live with, not that's just imposed on communities."

"This year the upheaval has been particularly severe," he added.

"I think a lot of us understand that there will be changes. But the thing I remark on is there's just been a lack of engagement at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and their representative organisations on trying to make that upheaval easier, to work in our world."

Mr Gooda is also lobbying the Federal Government to commit to justice targets to address the increasing number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in prison.