Why underage Indigenous boys are being sent to maximum security men's jails

Young inmates in WA were moved from a juvenile detention centre to an adult prison last week, and their families are outraged.

Young inmates in WA were moved from a juvenile detention centre to an adult prison last week, and their families are outraged.

The families of the teenage prisoners who were forcibly relocated from a youth detention centre to a maximum security adult prison are "disgusted" by the decision, and fear the young prisoners will socialise with older, dangerous inmates.

Western Australia’s state government announced the plan earlier this month, saying the move from Banksia Hill detention centre to Casuarina Prison was due to disruptive behaviour from the young inmates. 

The boys are aged between 14 and 17.

Of the 17 teenagers, 12 are Indigenous, one is Maori and four are non-Indigenous.

One inmate’s grandmother said the prison did not tell her when her 14-year-old grandson had been moved. She only found out when her daughter went for a scheduled visit at Banksia and discovered he was no longer there.

“My daughter had a visit booked in on Wednesday, when she was told he was no longer there and had been moved to Casuarina maximum security prison,” she said. 

The grandmother, distraught by the decision to move her grandson said: "We don't know what section he is in. We don't know the other prisoners - they could be hard core criminals or paedophiles."

The Oz has omitted the names of the prisoners' family members, due to the risk of identifying the young inmates.

The WA Department of Justice said the boys are separated from the adult prisoners in a secure unit and "are supervised and managed by a number of Banksia Hill staff whenever they are in the exercise and recreational areas." 

But another young prisoner's grandmother told The Oz her grandson has been socialising with the older inmates since being moved to Casuarina.

“When I spoke to him on the phone he told me he can talk to the adult prisoners through the fence. His brother, who is already serving time in Casuarina, can come down and talk to him,” she said. “He told me he didn’t want to move prisons, and that they had shackled his ankles and wrists when they transferred him.”

She said she fears there is “no duty of care” over her grandson, and no compassion shown to any of the young prisoners. 

“I am disgusted by the way they are being treated,” she said. “No one is taking any responsibility for these kids.

"They’re not just little mongrels. They need someone to go in there and help them in the right direction, not lock them up with adults.”

WA Director General Adam Tomison said the group of teenagers had notable offending histories and had been destroying infrastructure, assaulting staff and harming themselves in Banksia Hill.

Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre had been vandalised by the young inmates.

The WA Department of Justice was left with no option but to relocate the detainees to a more secure space, he said. 

But human rights campaigner Gerry Georgatos said Banksia Hill was unfit to hold inmates. 

“The walls are only made from double brick and are not hard to damage,” Georgatos told The Oz. “They’re not built with reinforced walls like regular prisons.”

Georgatos, the convener of Humanitarian Programs at the Institute of Social Justice and Human Rights, is leading a class action against the prison, which has been labelled “a tinderbox ready to ignite”. 

Just this year, a damning report tabled in the state parliament concluded that Banksia Hill had breached international human rights standards.

“The Centre was presenting as increasingly in crisis and unable to safely manage the needs of all of the young people in detention,” Inspector of Custodial Services Eamon Ryan said at the time. 

“This was especially so for a cohort of highly vulnerable youth acting out regularly and through their actions dominating the attention of the management of the facility.”

Broken Banksia, broken kids

One of the boys who was moved from Banksia to the maximum security jail is a 15-year-old Indigenous boy whom Perth Children’s Court president Hylton Quail described as “one of the most damaged” children to have appeared before him, saying he had been subjected to “prolonged systematic dehumanisation and deprivation” at the facility.

Earlier this year Justice Quail slammed the "dehumanising" detention of the teenage offender.

He ended up in Banksia after robbing an 82-year-old man of $2000 he had just withdrawn from the bank and then broke into a woman's home to try steal money for clothes.

He also assaulted youth custodial officers at the Banksia, repeatedly throwing urine at guards, spitting in their faces, and punching and kicking them. Actions which Justice Quail described as "vile" and "disgusting".

All but one of them happened in the "Intensive Supervision unit", where the teenager was held alone for 79 of the 98 days he had been in custody. On 33 of those days, including over Christmas last year, he was not let out of his cell.

"When you treat a damaged child like an animal, they will behave like an animal," Justice Quail said. 

"When you want to make a monster, this is how you do it."