Dozens of children are likely to spend Christmas behind bars in the Northern Territory’s infamous Don Dale youth detention centre, four years after the government agreed to close it.

Inmate numbers climbed to 44 in recent months after the NT government toughened youth bail laws earlier in the year.

Darwin lawyer John B Lawrence SC is representing an 11-year-old Indigenous boy on remand in the former men’s prison.

“It’s disgusting that a child so young is in custody and away from his family over the holidays,” he told AAP on Wednesday.

“But it’s a fact and it’s appalling that we accept and let this happen in Australia”.

Mr Lawrence said the facility was “dystopian and derelict” and his client was locked in a cell alone most of the day without activities.

In 2017, the NT government accepted recommendations from the NT juvenile justice royal commission to shut down and replace Don Dale.

But four years on, a new facility is not complete.

Most of the alleged child offenders the NT justice system deals with are Aboriginal.

“If they were white kids locked up there would be an outcry,” Mr Lawrence said.

“But because they’re Indigenous this country culturally accepts this horrendous behaviour.”

Mr Lawrence, a former president of the NT Bar Association and former president of the Criminal Lawyers Association, said the situation was “shameful and embarrassing” and must stop.

“People need to take direct action to change this situation and end jails continuing to hold Aboriginal children,” he said.

“All other methods have failed.”

He called on prominent Australians to lead “lawful and peaceful civil disobedience” against the NT’s justice system.

“That could work. Let’s end this now,” he said.

There are currently 34 children detained in the Don Dale youth detention centre and 15 in an Alice Springs facility, according to an NT government census on December 13.

The final report of a royal commission into the protection and detention of children in the NT revealed systemic and shocking failures, including regular, repeated and distressing mistreatment of young people.

The NT government accepted in full or in principle all 227 recommendations.

The territory’s Children’s Commissioner released a report earlier in the month slamming conditions in the NT’s youth detention centres.

Increased prisoner numbers and staff shortages impacted the ability to provide basic services to inmates, Commissioner Sally Sievers found.

Some inmates were locked in their cells for more than 23 hours and 45 minutes a day and denied adequate access to education and medical services.

The NT government said it has been working to reform the territory’s youth justice system and significant progress had been made to implement 218 recommendations.

It said it had rolled out youth justice programs to help end the cycle of crime, with an additional $45 million invested since 2016-17.

Minister for Territory Families and Urban Housing Kate Worden said work on the new Darwin facility was also progressing and the Alice Springs facility was being refurbished.

‘We need to make sure the new facility strikes a balance between ensuring it is secure, safe, robust and durable while meeting the therapeutic and rehabilitative needs of young people,” Ms Worden said.

There are renewed calls to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, which the NT government says it supports in principle to age 12.

“In order for this law reform to be effective, services must first be established and effective that cater for at-risk children below the age of criminal responsibility,” Ms Worden said.