Unit 18 to remain open for years as Cleveland Dodd’s family prepare for his burial

Warning: this report contains the name and image of a deceased Indigenous person, with his family’s permission.

Western Australia’s notorious Unit 18 youth detention wing at the adult maximum-security Casuarina Prison, where 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd recently took his life, could remain open for years as the state government designs and builds a new facility.

On Thursday, the day before Cleveland was to be laid to rest in Meekatharra, Premier Roger Cook and Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia announced a $1 million business case would be completed before the May 2024 budget outlining the costs, timing and location of the project to be built at the existing Banksia Hill Detention Centre site.

Corrective Services minister Paul Papalia.Credit: Hamish Hastie

The facility would cost more than $100 million and house between 10 and 20 children currently locked up in Unit 18, and provide some remand facilities for children who were known to have behavioural issues entering detention.

However, given the complexity of the project, the facility may still be years away.

Cleveland took his own life while prison staff were watching movies, with an investigation finding they had been faking their checks on the children under their charge. His family are demanding charges be laid against those who failed to ensure his safety.

Papalia has admitted Cleveland should be alive today.

“The fact he is not is, without question, a devastating tragedy. Put simply, we let him down,” Papalia said when the findings of the government’s internal probe were handed down earlier this month.

On Thursday, the minister scoffed at a question about whether the facility could be opened before the March 2025 election, and likened it to the new Fremantle Police Station and $89 million Armadale Justice Complex, which only opened this year after the first concrete was poured in 2020.

“In a year? $100 million purpose design project, no mate, no. No chance,” he said.

Greens MP Brad Pettitt lashed the government for its inaction and said the business case did not go far enough.

“It’s going to see Unit 18 remain open for years and years ahead and, frankly, I am deeply concerned as a result of that we’re going to see more kids self-harm,” he said.

Cleveland Dodd with his mother Nadene.

“I hope this is not true, but it could be more lives lost.”

In a statement, Cleveland’s family said they wanted the people who designed and approved the “inhumane” Unit 18 named and brought to account.

“It is an evil place where hopelessness destroys mortal life,” they said.

Statement from Cleveland Dodd’s family

Our young one, a child of the sunrise, of sweeping deserts and untampered earth, is to be made one with the earth again tomorrow, his spirit to ancestors and kin.

We grieve sorrow that our boy should leave us so soon, before this child’s full bloom.

We thank before all others, two strong and kind souls who have been with us since the first day of cruel injustice - Gerry Georgatos and Aunty Megan Krakouer - they are friends in even the strongest winds.

Our boy is to be layed in earth Meekatharra drawn. But as we do so, we cannot do so quietly. Those who cruelly stole his mortal living are not yet held to account.

More than 50 days have passed since our child was betrayed by people who cruelled the life out of his body.Racism must not protect wrongdoers.

How is it those who fabricated welfare checks have not been charged? How is it those who locked him in a cell endlessly for months and in which his eyes last sight was, those who cruelled hopeless fate have not been charged?

We will fight for the truth and not let us be denied truth because we are what you call us, “black”.

We want the people who designed and approved the inhumane Unit 18, named and brought to account, charged. It is an evil place where hopelessness destroys mortal life. We want them charged. As we do guards who ticked off welfare checks at the beginning of their shifts and not as they happened.

They fated our child’s death in that dank, dark dungeon.

The nation is here in Meekatharra, watching, and we ask its media, that they hear us, listen and in fact, help. The first step is to broadcast this statement, to the nation.

The family also wanted the guards working that evening who logged welfare checks of Cleveland that they did not actually conduct charged.

“They fated our child’s death in that dank, dark dungeon,” they said.

Papalia said the coronial inquest and CCC investigation into Cleveland’s “tragic” death were yet to be completed but would provide deeper insight into the incident.

Papalia said he hoped to have work on the new facility under way before the next election.

In addition to the business case, the government has also announced a further $76 million in the mid-year review for staffing, facility upgrades and new services at both Banksia Hill and Unit 18.

More than $34 million would boost staff levels, including youth custodial officers and Aboriginal health and services officers.

About $8 million would fund enhanced programs and services on offer to detainees as well as Aboriginal health services and fetal alcohol syndrome disorder training for staff.

Another $20.7 million would be spent on the previously announced crisis care unit, which the government said would take the total amount of funding diverted to youth justice in the past 18 months to $169 million.

Papalia also revealed that Unit 18 had recently introduced a new operating model that arranged detainees in terms of behaviour.

The “three-wing” model meant detainees with fewer behavioural issues placed in Wing A, where they had very little restrictions placed on them and had more out-of-cell hours.

Detainees in Wing B have exhibited the most behavioural issues and face more restrictions, while Wing C takes new arrivals.

Papalia said average out-of-cell hours at Banksia Hill and Unit 18 had improved dramatically over recent months to 9.5 hours and 4.5 hours, however he could not provide a breakdown of what the averages were for detainees in Unit 18’s Wing B.

Crisis support is available from Lifeline on 13 11 14. For 24/7 crisis support run by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, contact 13YARN (13 92 76).

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