Bail crackdown worsens First Nations incarceration in Victoria

The number of First Nations people held on remand in Victoria has jumped by nearly 50% in a year following the state government’s bail crackdown.

There has been a significant increase in the number of First Nations people in prison in Victoria, driven by a punitive crackdown on bail recently introduced by the state government.

While the Victorian government has said the increase in First Nations incarceration rates is “relatively proportionate” to the overall increase in the prison population, the percentage increase of Indigenous people imprisoned in the last year is far higher than non-Indigenous people.

From May 2024 to May 2025, there was a 9% increase in Victoria’s total prison population, Corrections data shows.

In the same time, there was an 18% increase in the number of First Nations people in prison in Victoria.

In the last year, there has also been a 32% increase in the number of people held on remand in the state, compared with a 47% increase in the number of First Nations people on remand in Victoria.

As of the end of May, there were 885 First Nations people in prison in Victoria, and nearly half of these people were held on remand and yet to be found guilty of a crime.

This is a higher proportion than the wider prison population, where about a third are held on remand.

Greens MLC Katherine Copsey recently asked about First Nations incarceration rates in Parliament.

She was told that as of 6 June, there were 891 First Nations people in prison, and a total prison population of about 6500. That means that 13% of Victoria’s prison population is First Nations, while just 1% of the overall Victorian population identify as being Indigenous.

Copsey said that it is “disgraceful to be overseeing such an increase in the over-incarceration of First Nations people”.

The Victorian government in March this year passed the first tranche of its bail reforms, including scrapping the requirement to consider that detention is a measure of last resort for children, expanding the range of offences subject to the reverse onus tests and the return of two bail offences carrying potential prison sentences.

At the time, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) said the reforms will “needlessly lock away more people, particularly Aboriginal women and children experiencing poverty, family violence and mental illness”.

The Victorian government is now readying to introduce the second tranche of bail reforms to Parliament next month.

VALS said these changes are a “disaster waiting to happen”, and will “inevitably result in more Aboriginal deaths in custody”.

VALS said that there has been a 300% increase in its youth clients being denied bail since June last year, and a 216% increase in its adult clients being held on remand.