Riot squad escorts firefighters into Perth juvenile detention centre

A prison riot squad has been called to Western Australia’s children’s prison, and firefighters have extinguished a blaze as some staff were evacuated.

The ‘exercise yard’ at Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre.

Police and a prison riot squad have again been called to Western Australia’s children’s prison, where an attempt to quell rolling violence by sending the most “challenging” juveniles to an adult men’s prison has failed.

Three days after teenage boys caused a standoff by sitting on roofs at Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre in Perth’s southeast, boys were again climbing roofs and running along the tops of fences designed to be unscalable.

The prison riot squad escorted firefighters into the children’s jail as part of it burned.

The Australian has been told the fire lit by rioting children caused extensive damage to one building at the facility late on Saturday and staff were being evacuated.

In response to questions from The Australian, the WA Department of Justice issued a media statement that confirmed Corrective Services officers were “responding to a disturbance at Banksia Hill Detention Centre”.

“A number of detainees have ascended roof tops and fences and have been threatening staff,” according to the statement.

“A command centre has been set up at the detention centre to co-ordinate the response.

“Special Operations Group officers have been deployed on site and other officers are en route to the facility. DFES (the Department of Fire and Emergency Services) have attended the site under SOG escort to put out an isolated fire that was lit.

“There is no threat to the broader community,” the Justice Department statement said.

There have long been occasional riots at Banksia Hill. The biggest was in the summer of 2013 after boys were locked in unairconditioned cells for 23 to 24 hours a day for seven weeks. One boy got bedsores.

The solitary confinement cell where a 15-year-old boy spent 79 days in solitary confinement.

The lockdowns were a result of a staffing shortage and some boys destroyed the cells, forcing the Barnett Liberal government to send children to a maximum-security men’s prison while the facility was repaired and rebuilt.

Juvenile justice advocates say unrest at Banksia Hill over the past year is also largely the result of understaffing: when the facility does not have enough guards, children cannot be let out for exercise, sport or other activities and must remain locked down.

Perth Children’s Court president Hylton Quail has repeatedly told the McGowan government the regime is illegal.

He highlighted the case of a 15-year-old boy who was locked in solitary confinement for 79 days last summer including on Christmas Day.

Megan Krakouer, director of the National Suicide Prevention and Trauma Recovery Project, said: “These are not difficult children to work with. The department refuses the approach that works: radical empathy, radical transformation.”