CANBERRA, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Overcrowded prisons in Australia's Northern Territory (NT) have prompted calls for mandatory sentencing to be abolished, local media reported Thursday.
Figures released by the NT Corrections Department revealed that 1,833 people were incarcerated across the NT.
The territory's largest prison, the Darwin Correctional Facility, was found to be 3 percent over capacity with 1087 prisoners house there.
The Alice Springs prison was 30 percent over capacity with 642 detainees.
Beth Wild, manager of the criminal law section of the Northern Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) said the problem had led to bed shortages in the facilities.
"Prisoners are sleeping on the floor, they're sleeping on mattresses, they're sleeping outside," Wild told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Thursday.
"Prisoners are asking not to be brought to court so that they don't lose their beds, because once they're returned to prison after court they're back outside again."
The figures have prompted calls for the abolition of mandatory sentencing laws in the NT, which has the highest rate of incarceration in Australia.
Under current sentencing rules, judges can choose to impose a harsher sentence than the mandatory minimum sentence for a crime but cannot choose to impose a shorter sentence.
"(The Territory government) should get rid of mandatory sentencing immediately," Wild said.
"It would cost them nothing to get rid of it and would, in the long-term, save money because incarcerating people is expensive."
According to NT Corrective Services data, the average cost of keeping a prisoner behind bars in 2015-16 was 198.86 Australian dollars (154.9 U.S. dollars) per day.
