According to the recent report of the Productivity Commission, the number of First Nations people in Australian prisons is at an all-time high.

Nearly half are unsentenced. About 80% will be on remand for more than a month with 10% for one year or more.

The high rates are partly due to bail reforms that make laws stricter. Instead of the prosecution having to prove why they should be held in prison, some reforms require the accused person to prove why they should be granted bail.

The shift in the burden of proof makes it especially difficult for First Nations repeat offenders to be released on bail. Their usually life-long experiences of criminal justice surveillance and institutionalisation make it difficult for them to escape the cycle of incarceration.

Bigger numbers of remandees are generating significant consequences. Prisons are becoming chronically overcrowded, leading to an amplified prevalence of mental illness, substance misuse, violence, self-harm and, potentially, suicide.

First Nations people in Western Australia refer to remand as “dead time” – a period of pronounced uncertainty and stagnation. Remandees “can’t go forward and can’t go back”. “You can’t live and you can’t die”. Stuck in prison limbo, they experience unease and unknowing: “what is to become of me?”

Dead time, according to First Nations prisoner, Jeannie (not her real name), is “the hardest time ever”. Interaction with family and children is severely restricted. Any agency they may have had in caring for family is replaced with concern or shame. Their imprisonment can result in family losing income, becoming housing vulnerable or disintegration.

Meanwhile, inside, remandees are often bored. They cannot access rehabilitation programs and other services needed for improving their lives. In overcrowded prisons, there is reduced scope for gaining work or constructive activities. What does interrupt tedium, however, is a greater likelihood of their experiencing conflict, bullying and violence than for their sentenced peers.

In deteriorating prison conditions, the likelihood of First Nations remandees contemplating suicide increases. As Jeannie said: “The amount of times I wanted to do something stupid, cause it just feels easier.”

Some of Jeannie’s incarcerated family members have already chosen the “easier” exit, either taking their own lives inside or after release from prison.

Suicide is not only the tragic loss of an individual person, but it also devastates family in ways that are unique to First Nations culture. Each person has an obligation to others. When that person commits suicide, the social contract is weakened. Suicide makes threadbare the familial fabric of care that First Nations people have long believed to be important for maintaining existence.

Increased “dead time” further adds to First Nations people’s deep-seated distrust of how law and justice are delivered. They have long endured a history of systemic injustices, including deaths in custody, and a legacy of disadvantage. They remain witnesses to systemic bias and racism, resulting in harsher treatment and longer sentences. They are frustrated that in-prison support and services are not culturally appropriate or relevant to their needs.

Jeannie reports: “I started my jail time in 1994 and now at the tender age of 50 nothing has changed in the broken system that has taken so many of our people by suicide. It still destroys and torments me to this day when I hear the screams of our young getting dragged down the hole.”

For First Nations people, the exaggerated use of remand is just another chapter in the book of failure.

What is needed is a fundamental shift in how law and justice are delivered. In that process of change, First Nations people, including from the regions, must be accorded greater agency in producing policy and practice. Only then can there be any conceivable prospect of reducing high rates of remand and the disturbing impacts of this destructive development.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.