Detention centre’s freeze on icy treats as report reveals detainees’ unhealthy eating habits

Ashley Youth Detention Centre has stopped letting detainees take snacks back to their units after the young offenders were caught eating up to 24 icy poles a day.

Ashley Youth Detention Centre detainees have had access to junk food restricted. Picture: SUPPLIED.

ASHLEY Youth Detention Centre has stopped letting detainees take snacks back to their three and four-person units after the young offenders were caught eating up to 24 icy poles a day.

Custodial Inspector Richard Connock has written up to 70 per cent of offenders were believed to gain weight while in detention, which he attributed to sudden access to unlimited food, inactivity and the increasing use of icy poles, lollies and chocolate as incentives.

“Sweet snacks are used as rewards in education programs and extra snack foods are made available on movie nights, which can result in an accumulated amount of less nutritious foods being consumed by residents,” Mr Connock said.

“The inspection team was advised that two to three years ago these foods were only available to residents occasionally but now the kitchen must supply them when they are requested, and units with three or four residents can go through a 24 pack of icy poles in 24 hours.”

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Units were also going through up to one litre of ice cream flavouring between them a day, Mr Connock said, as well as treats like Milo.

Ashley Youth Detention Centre near Westbury in northern Tasmania.

Prepared meals were “of good nutritional value” with plenty of hidden vegetables, Mr Connock wrote. However, detainees who did not like the meals presented to them could ask for extra bread, noodles and cheese, then eat that instead of their dinner.

“This is wasteful and costly as well as nutritionally disadvantageous,” Mr Connock said.

Dessert was provided seven nights a week as well as what the centre referred to as “slab” — a plate of slices and/or biscuits, or cheese and cold meats. On Friday nights, detainees were also allowed to buy extra snacks from the centre’s canteen, which was stocked with junk food.

Mr Connock wrote there had been resistance from youth workers to calls to stop serving dessert on Friday nights because they could not access slab and “still wanted to be served dessert”.

The centre ultimately decided to reduce dessert to two nights a week and provide healthier snack options in the units, the Communities Department said.

Icy poles and “other such snacks” were removed from the units entirely.

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