Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995 from the federal parliament. Consequently, the federal parliament retains the right to legislate for the territory, including the right to territory laws. In practice, it very rarely exercised that right. On 25 March 1997, the federal parliament passed the "Euthanasia Laws Act 1997", which, although not technically repealing the "Rights of the Terminally Ill Act", for all practical purposes rendered it of no legal effect. Rather than repeal the Act directly, the law instead amended the "Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act 1978", the act under which the Commonwealth Parliament has delegated legislative power to the Northern Territory Parliament—effectively the territory's "constitution"
Mentally ill people in United States jails and prisons for all men and women, with the largest rate for white men. A related cause of the disproportionate amount of mentally ill people in prisons is criminalization of mental illness itself. In the 1984 study "Criminalizing mental disorder: The comparative arrest rate of the mentally ill", researcher L. A. Teplin notes that in addition to a decline in federal support for mental illness resulting in more people being denied treatment, mentally ill people are often stereotyped as dangerous, making fear a factor in action taken against them. Bureaucratic and legal impediments to initiating mental health referrals means arrest can be