National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds condemns use of solitary isolation on teenager in wake of Don Dale riot

The National Children’s Commissioner has spoken up following a riot at Don Dale, saying youth detention centres across Australia were breaching human rights and only teaching children ‘how to do crime’.

The federal children’s commissioner has labelled youth detention centres ‘the epicentre of human rights breaches for young Australians’ in the wake of a riot at the Don Dale Detention Centre.

On Wednesday, 16 teenagers allegedly took part in a riot in the infamous Northern Territory prison, with the 17-hour stand-off resulting in children climbing on the roof, several fires and a police officer suffering a fractured leg.

National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds said the outburst of violence was evidence of a failure both within the prison and in the “early warning system” of the Territory’s health, education and social services sector.

“They slipped through the cracks until they end up on the street, they dropped out of school, and they come to the attention of police and the next thing you know they’re in Don Dale,” Ms Hollonds said.

“We wait too late and expect police and the justice system to fix problems that they will never be able to fix.”

Anne Hollonds at her home in Roseville, a suburb of Sydney. Hollonds is the National Children's Commissioner and has a background in child and family services as a psychologist. Photo: David Maurice Smith/Oculi.

Territory Families’ own Youth Justice Model of Care found up to 75 per cent of children in detention had one or more psychiatric disorders, while developmental and intellectual disorders were “widespread”.

Ms Hollonds said the Territory was treating young people’s health with a law and order response.

But the watchdog said this was not unique to the NT, with a national investigation into youth justice interviewing 160 young people and detention centre workers revealing a common thread.

Ms Hollonds said youth justice staff across Australia told her: “we are not equipped to deal with these sorts of problems”.

She said the latest riot was likely a reaction from the young people to “traumatic conditions they’re experiencing” and staff not having adequate training to pick up signs of conflict or receiving enough support to manage the teens’ complex needs.

On Thursday, Territory Families confirmed the whole centre was in an indefinite lockdown, but would not confirm how many hour the children were allowed out of their cells before the riot.

Ms Hollonds said the use of solitary confinement on Australian children was widespread and often used for “operational reasons” like staffing shortages.

NT Police, firefighters and paramedics were called to a reported riot in which fires were lit at Don Dale Detention Centre on Wednesday, April 3. Picture: Zizi Averill

“We call it lockdown or night mode or some other nice words, but it’s actually holding children in solitary confinement for sometimes nearly 24 hours a day,” she said.

“And while they’re in solitary confinement … they are not getting education, rehabilitation or recreation.”

“Youth justice systems around the country, are in fact the location, the pinnacle of the most egregious human rights breaches for children.”

Ms Hollonds said rather than being a place of healing, detention centres were just teaching children “how to do crime”.

Originally published as National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds condemns use of solitary isolation on teenager in wake of Don Dale riot