Parkville youth justice centre riot: Staff ill-equipped for violence, report states

TEEN thugs’ lack of respect for authority, poorly trained and under-resourced staff and infrastructure weakness have been blamed for a riot at a youth prison last ­November.

Rioters at Melbourne Youth Justice Centre in Parkville.

TEEN thugs’ lack of respect for authority, poorly trained and under-resourced staff and infrastructure weakness have been blamed for a riot at a youth prison last ­November that caused ­millions of dollars in damage.

Former chief commissioner Neil Comrie said youth justice staff were “unable or unwilling” to stamp out violence before it escalated due to a lack of resources and concerns they could be disciplined if a violent teen was harmed when restrained.

He said the youth system was now full of more violent teens who “have no respect for authority of any kind and regularly challenge and refuse to comply with instructions from youth justice staff”.

Police at the scene as prisoners riot at the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre in November. Picture: Mark Dadswell

Mr Comrie said these ­violent offenders had pushed youth justice to a point where infrastructure and ­systems designed for a different era were incapable of ­delivering a safe system.

The second stage of his ­report into the November 12 riot at Parkville Youth ­Justice Centre will be ­released today and has found ­“infrastructure weaknesses” in the roof were exploited by two teens in breaking out of their cell after they had been placed in lockdown.

They then broke through the external structure, freed offenders from other units and damaged the ­education centre. All told, 28 young ­offenders from four units — armed with makeshift weapons — were involved in the near 18 hours of rioting. Four units were destroyed and 60 beds taken out of the system.

Mr Comrie said staff training and the equipment on hand were unable to deal with violent situations like the Parkville riot.

He said some staff were not suited to making a “physical response” to violence and staff numbers were too inadequate to deal with widespread disturbances.

He made 11 recommendations — all accepted by the government — mostly on further staff training, ­additional resources and ­cutting out agency staff.

He recommended a policy review on the use of ­restraints and that youth ­justice establish its own ­intelligence system, linked to Victoria Police’s network.

Mr Comrie also recommended that staff do not cave into rioting teens’ demands during disturbances.

Youth justice management has been accused of providing pizza, junk food and soft drink as inducements to stop teens rioting.

Further training has been written into the EBA with the union and, since September 2016, 181 new youth ­justice workers have been recruited across Victoria’s three facilities. Staff induction training will be extended by six days and specialist Safety and Emergency Response Teams will have the same training as Corrections officers in adult prisons.

The Department of Justice and Regulation yesterday took over the running of youth prisons from the ­Department of Health and Human Services.

Youth Affairs Minister Jenny Mikakos said the ­reforms would make the ­system safer.

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