Juvenile offenders could be locked up in ‘specialised units’ if they muck up

The juvenile justice system’s worst offenders could be locked away in a specialist unit with up to 10 beds with harsh penalties dealt out to those who continue to misbehave, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

• Body cam footage exposes juvenile justice crisis
• Officers call for ‘high-risk’ unit for violent young offenders

The juvenile justice system’s worst offenders could be locked away in a specialist unit with up to 10 beds with harsh penalties dealt out to those who continue to misbehave.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal Correctives Minister David Elliott will announce the changes today in response to increasing anger over ­assaults on juvenile justice guards.

“I have instructed the establishment of a working group to investigate the operation and management of a six to 10 bed specialised unit for our most challenging detainees,” Mr Elliott said.

Corrections Minister David Elliott will announce the changes following anger over guards being assaulted by violent young offenders. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

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He said an “immediate action response team” would also be set-up inside Western Sydney’s Cobham Juvenile Justice Centre, to be deployed when a detainee lashed out at staff or fellow inmates.

Mr Elliott said Juvenile Justice NSW would roster on more frontline staff and carry out an immediate review of its sanctions to see if harsher penalties should be applied “when a detainee misbehaves”.

“I will always support our youth officers who perform one of the most challenging positions in NSW managing detainees with complex backgrounds and needs,” he said.

Tensions have been at boiling point for almost two years between the government and the Public Service Association which represents juvenile justice officers, over the issue of establishing a new “high risk” unit with more intense staffing and specific programs to ­rehabilitate repeat offenders.

The Daily Telegraph revealed last week a shocking list of abuses of staff inside the state’s six juvenile justice centres, including blood being spat in the face of an officer and other staff being bitten, punched and stabbed.

Six detainees, including three high-risk offenders, scaled the roof at the Cobham centre in Werrington on Thursday, staging a 10-hour stand-off with guards.

Detainees on top of a roof at the Cobham Juvenile Justice Centre in Werrington. Picture: 9 News

The incident came just a day after officers held a stop-work protest over their treatment by inmates.

PSA general secretary Stewart Little said both the ­immediate action team and the working group to consider an intensive unit were positive steps by Mr Elliott.

“We’re encouraged that they want to have a discussion about what we’ve been discussing for the last two years,” Mr Little said.

The union claims such a unit would end the constant “bouncing” of troubled teens from one centre to the next whenever they assaulted staff.

Corrective Services NSW, which runs adult prisons, will be included in the discussion group on how the new centre would run, as will the NSW ­department of Justice, Health and Education.