• • 5.4 Implementing the National Statement of Principles Relating to Persons Unfit to Plead or Found Not Guilty By Reason of Cognitive or Mental Health Impairment into laws, policies and procedures. Ensuring adequate disability supports and services are available in the criminal justice system, including the provision of mental health care services. Other issues – Prison and remand 100. The Commission is concerned about the high numbers of people incarcerated in Australian prisons overall. The rate of imprisonment in Australia has risen by 130% since 1985.129 101. In October 2021, the Productivity Commission reported that a third of Australia’s prison population is on remand, awaiting trial or sentencing, and that the remand prison population has nearly doubled since 2000. 130 The average time spent on remand has also increased from 4.5 months in 2001 to 5.8 months in 2020. 131 The remand rate continues to rise – in December 2021 the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that the number of prisoners on remand in Australia increased by 16% since June 2020. 132 First Nations people accounted for 31% of the remand population in 2020 – up from 23% in 2006.133 102. The proportion of people on remand is even higher in the youth justice context. Across Australia, nearly 3 in 4 (72%) young people in detention in June 2021 were unsentenced.134 103. The high remand population in adult prisons and youth justice centres is due in part to changes to bail legislation in Australian jurisdictions.135 For example, in November 2021 youth detainee numbers in the Northern Territory reached their highest point since the 2017 Royal Commission report,136 and this has been linked to harsh bail laws137 passed in 2021. The Productivity Commission has found that remand rates reflect ‘a combination of systemic resourcing constraints, largely relating to courts, as well as a judicial response to wider contextual factors such as reduced judicial discretion over bail decisions’.138 104. The high numbers of people in prison and on remand has led to overcrowding. The Commission raised the issue of overcrowding in prisons in its 2014 CAT Submission.139 There has been little improvement on this issue. 105. Overcrowding in prisons has also increased risk factors for the spread of COVID-19.140 Available reporting indicates that prisoners have lower 24