Record prisoner numbers forced ‘unfortunate’ decision to salvage Don Dale from bulldozer

‘I don’t care about doing backflips … we need to have somewhere for more prisoners, and I’m taking the bad people off the streets of Darwin and putting them in detention,’ Eva Lawler said.

The Chief Minister has committed to allow media to tour Don Dale after its youth detainees are moved to a new facility later this year.

Eva Lawler also admitted the government had hoped to demolish both the former and current Don Dale youth detention centre sites, but said increasing pressure on the NT prison system forced that to change.

A tender has been released for the demolition of the original Don Dale, but the current facility – formerly Berrimah Prison – will be repurposed for adult male inmates.

More than $14m has been spent on improving the Berrimah prison Don Dale since it was decommissioned as a maximum-security unit, and described by a former Correctional Services Commissioner as “only fit for a bulldozer”.

“If you want to call it a backflip, I don’t care about doing backflips,” Ms Lawler said.

“What I care about is looking after Territorians and the sensible use of funding for the Northern Territory – this is taxpayers’ money.

“We’ve got a facility there, we need to have somewhere for more prisoners, and I’m taking the bad people off the streets of Darwin and putting them in detention.”

The defunct maximum security adult prison in Berrimah that has been used as Don Dale Youth Detention Centre since 2014. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

Ms Lawler said Cabinet made a decision to repurpose Don Dale earlier this month, after a briefing from Corrections Commissioner Matthew Varley.

“Where the young people are now, we will demolish that facility in the future. We wanted to demolish that facility,” she said.

“Unfortunately, our prisons are absolutely full.

“As a sensible, common sense measure, we’ve had to keep (the current Don Dale) online, we will upgrade it to a certain extent.”

Ms Lawler said she could not give a timeline for when the current Don Dale might be knocked down.

She said long term problems and a spike in crime after Covid contributed to record high prison numbers, and Labor was constantly working to reduce the number of Territorians in the justice system.

Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro. Picture: Fia Walsh.

Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro said the government had failed to properly plan for increased prison numbers.

“They promised Territorians back in 2016 they would bulldoze Don Dale, and now over the last week we’ve seen this flip-flopping of government policy being made up on the run as they scramble to cover up what is an infrastructure problem of their own making,” Ms Finocchiaro said.

“We’ve got people in Northcrest, for example, who’ve invested their life savings to build a new home on the basis that Labor was going to demolish that prison.

“This lack of certainty actually erodes confidence in people to live, work and invest in the Territory.”

Ms Finocchiaro said media should be allowed to tour Don Dale and see the damage from recent riots while youth detainees remained in the facility.

While the government on Tuesday promised access – an about-face after weeks of denials – Ms Lawler said concerns for vulnerable children meant access would only be granted after inmates were moved.

Originally published as Record prisoner numbers forced ‘unfortunate’ decision to salvage Don Dale from bulldozer