Don Dale facing potential United Nation’s Committee Against Torture investigation

National experts have raised concerns about human rights violations at the Territory’s youth detention centres in a submission to the United Nations.

The Northern Territory’s controversial youth detention facilities have been highlighted with the United Nations’ Committee Against Torture.

Change The Record, the Human Rights Law Centre and National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Legal Service made a joint submission this week to the Committee Against Torture.

The international watchdog is expected to visit Australia between October 30 and November 25.

“The upcoming review...provides an opportunity for the recently elected federal Albanese government to show leadership where successive, previous federal governments have failed to take initiative (and) end human rights abuses in places of detention,” the submission reads.

“The lack of implementation of the recommendations made by the Royal Commission and Board of Inquiry into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory in the 5 years since its final report was handed down is unacceptable, particularly in light of recent announcements made by the Northern Territory government to build a new youth prison.”

The new facility will be built next to the existing Holtze Adult Correctional Facility.

“What’s really important about these new centres is the model of care which will assist us to deliver all of the programs in a therapeutic way, that best serves young people that are in our Youth Justice systems,” Territory Families Minister Kate Worden said.

“We are continuing to implement all the recommendations from the Royal Commission.”

The submission referred to a series of NT News exclusive investigations that revealed spit hoods were used 27 times on kids by Territory cops and rates of youth detention have grown by 200 per cent.

“Notably, governments across the country continue to introduce discriminatory laws that contradict the agreements they make with the community, like the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, as well as state and territory-based Aboriginal Justice Agreements,” the submission reads.

“A clear example is amendments to the Youth Justice Act in the Northern Territory last year that have made it harder for children to get bail in certain cases, restricted access to diversion opportunities and have exponentially increased numbers of children on remand.”

The controversial bail reforms are under review which is due to be completed by November, 18 months after they were introduced.

Community organisations have pushed for an urgent repeal following evidence they have not reduced recidivism and significantly increased rates of detention.

At a media conference last month, Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said the government put significant measures in place to support families.

“We’re focused on providing support to families to drive generational change, we have seen significant changes in child protection,” she said.

“And we are also working in the youth justice space to support young people so that we can see them reform their behaviours rather than ending up in a cycle of crime and into our adult correctional facility.”

The submission called on the United Nations to ensure the NT Government implemented all Royal Commission recommendations, ban spit hoods and raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14.

Change the Record executive officer Sophie Trevitt said people are being locked away in conditions that would “horrify and appall” most of Australia.

“Children as young as 10 are stripsearched and locked up in solitary confinement, mothers are imprisoned and separated from their babies for minor breaches of bail and people in custody are sometimes denied lifesaving health care,” she said.

“The uncomfortable truth is that so long as governments insist on discriminatory, punitive, law-and-order policies they will never close the gap and we will continue to see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, mothers and children driven into Australia’s overcrowded prison system.”

Razor wire around Don Dale Youth Detention Centre is an ode to the facility former life as a maximum-security prison. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

WHAT CONCERNS WERE RAISED ABOUT DETENTION?

Referring to national incarceration rates, the submission said Australia’s imprisonment rates represented a “crisis” that degraded and discriminated.

“The severely disproportionate incarceration of First Nations’ children, and the systematic and structural racism and discrimination that it belies, is degrading in and of itself,” it reads.

“Due to a toxic combination of the ongoing impacts of colonisation, systemic racism and discriminatory policing, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are criminalised and deprived of their liberty at alarming rates across the country.”

Australia is in the midst of a mass imprisonment crisis. For years, governments across the country have parroted the line that prisons support community safety, all to justify spending billions of dollars on prison expansion. But the premise is false.

— Monique Hurley (@monique_hurley) October 2, 2022

Human Rights Law Centre managing lawyer Monique Hurley said the United Nations’ upcoming review of Australia would shine the international spotlight on the human rights abuses permitted in prisons.

“Australia is in the midst of a mass imprisonment crisis, where human rights abuses are allowed to thrive in the darkness behind closed doors,” she said.

“Right now, people are being tortured in solitary confinement, women are being routinely stripped of their dignity and children as young as 10 are locked up in prison and police cells.”

The submission also raised concerns about neglect and mistreatment that it says can amount to torture in prisons and police cells across the country.

WHAT THE SUBMISSION RECOMMENDED AS SOLUTIONS?

The submission said urgent action was needed from all levels of government.

NATSILS executive officer Jamie McConnachie said independent bodies would put an end to the abuse and outdated policies that perpetuate the current situation.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere; urgent action is needed to protect the rights and lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” she said.

“Independent bodies must be set up to monitor the treatment and conditions of people detained.”

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS) chief executive Jamie McConnachie.

The three national organisations called on the international watchdog to support states and territories to implement the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

OPCAT is an international standard on how places of detention should operate and be monitored which the Federal Government signed up to in December of 2017.

At the time, the government said all custodial settings would implement OPCAT by January 2023.

However most states and Territories are yet to pass legislation.

Five years on, the Northern Territory is set to be one of the first jurisdictions to enact legislation to make sure detention centres were compliant with international standards.

The NT Monitoring of Places of Detention (Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture) Amendment Bill is expected to pass parliament next week during monthly sittings.

During the bill’s first reading, Attorney-General Chansey Paech said the Territory had opted for a legislative model that included independent bodies to monitor places of detention.

“This approach also takes into account recommendations (from) the Royal Commission into the Protection of Children in the Northern Territory,” the Attorney-General said.

“Those recommendations to that effect that propose the Commission for Children and Young People have OPCAT-compatible functions and powers.”

Originally published as Don Dale facing potential United Nation’s Committee Against Torture investigation