Victoria’s highest court rules against children in Barwon prison
HUMAN rights advocates have condemned the Victorian Government for locking kids up in an adult maximum security prison.
CHILDREN were housed in an adult prison for more than five months, held in lockdown for up to 23 hours a day and were handcuffed when they left their jail cells.
The state’s highest court ruled on Thursday that keeping children in Victoria’s maximum security adult Barwon Prison was against the law.
Tiffany Overall, convener of youth advocacy group Smart Justice for Young People, said the government did not act in the best interest of the juveniles.
“Adult prison is no place for kids. Most of these children have histories of abuse, trauma and neglect,” she said.
“Locking them up in adult prison only causes them more damage. They leave prison in a worse state than when they went in, which ultimately puts community safety at risk.
“It was a shocking mistake. But today’s judgment is a relief, and now there’s no denying what needs to be done — get kids out of Barwon.”
Amnesty International Australia campaigner Julian Cleary condemned the solitary confinement of children, handcuffing, and risk of inadequate medical care.
“Is this what we want for the children of Victoria? Are we Victorians a society that locks up children in solitary confinement, in adult prisons where they have their spirits broken? Or are we a society that sees the potential in all children, and supports and rehabilitates them?” he said.
Human rights advocates who launched the latest challenge to the government’s decision to house youths at the jail’s Grevillea unit are now flagging possible compensation for 15 youths.
In a 225-page judgment, Supreme Court Justice John Dixon said the government’s decision to establish a youth justice wing at the adult prison was unlawful and declared that detaining youths there was prohibited.
He also found the limitations placed on the human rights of child inmates were not justified.
It is not clear yet whether the government will appeal what has been the third challenge to its decision to keep children at the adult jail. The Human Rights Law Centre launched the latest legal challenge in April after the Victorian government reclassified an area of Barwon prison as a youth facility.
Teens were transferred from the trashed Parkville youth justice centre, in Melbourne, and Malmsbury youth justice centre, in central Victoria, in late 2016.
Hugh de Kretser, from the Human Rights Law Centre, said the government now had the chance to do the right thing and return the children to proper youth justice facilities.
“It defied belief that the only place the Victorian government could find in the whole state to house some 12, 15, at its most 28 children ... was a unit within the maximum security Barwon adult prison,” he told reporters.
The youth justice system has been under heavy scrutiny after riots rendered parts of the Parkville centre uninhabitable and a mass breakout occurred at the Malmsbury centre in January.
Mr de Kretser said with repairs to Parkville almost done, up to 60 beds will return to the system.
He said many of the children moved to Barwon had nothing to do with destroying the Parkville facility, but accused the government of trying to portray that it was punishing them for it by keeping them there.
He said the government had other places to house the children but chose to leave them in Barwon, where conditions undermined their rehabilitation and were ultimately bad for community safety.
The Coalition called for Youth Affairs Minister Jenny Mikakos to resign in a heated Legislative Council question time, soon after the judgment was delivered.
The opposition said the system was a shambles and questioned why Ms Mikakos still had the support of Premier Daniel Andrews.
“How many more times can Daniel Andrews protect this incompetent minister?” children’s spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said in a statement.
The matter returns to court on Friday.
— with AAP