Australian Human Rights Commission Submission to the UN Committee On The Elimination Of Racial Discrimination, 30 October 2017 likelihood of them receiving a custodial rather than non-custodial sentence.105  The Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples has said that mandatory sentencing laws need to be reviewed.106  The Commission has previously reported on several cases where Indigenous people are in prolonged detention due to being considered ‘unfit to plead’, resulting in them being detained for a period longer than the maximum sentence if they had been tried and found guilty. 107 92. The Commission notes that the current inquiry by the ALRC into the incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, reporting in December 2017, will assist in identifying laws requiring amendment to reduce Indigenous incarceration.108 93. The Commission has advocated that justice targets be set to halve the gap in rates of incarceration for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, as compared with non-Indigenous people.109 The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and successive Social Justice Commissioners, have recommended justice reinvestment strategies, which involve diverting and reinvesting funds used for imprisonment to services that address underlying causes of crime in communities with high rates of offending.110 94. The Commission notes that the Australian Government recently expressed its support for states and territories to implement a justice reinvestment approach, but noted that it ‘cannot effectively fund justice reinvestment projects because state and territory governments are solely responsible for managing corrections systems in Australia’ and that ‘the success of justice reinvestment … ultimately rests with the states and territories’.111 Recommendation 21: That all Australian governments commit to national justice targets to reduce the rates of imprisonment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults and juveniles and that these targets be introduced into the Closing the Gap Strategy. (b) Northern Territory Royal Commission 95. The Commission is extremely concerned about the conditions of detention for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander juveniles. 96. The Commission commends the Australian Government’s establishment of a Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory (NT Royal Commission).112 The inquiry is considering the situation of all juveniles in detention and care and protection in the Northern Territory. However, statistics show that 94% of the children and young people in detention in the Northern Territory are Aboriginal.113 Furthermore, 89% of children and young people in out-of-home care in the Northern Territory are Aboriginal.114 97. The NT Royal Commission released its interim report on 31 March 2017. The interim findings noted that site visits to the current youth detention centres 20