WA government announce a major overhaul for notorious youth centre

A youth detention centre that houses one state’s most “dangerous and violent cohort” of juvenile detainees is about to be rebuilt - with the plan sparking outrage.

A notorious detention centre will be overhauled with $100m purpose-built facility to house Western Australia’s most “dangerous and violent cohort” of juvenile detainees.

Unit 18 was established in 2022 to detain the “most challenging, complex and often dangerous juveniles” after a series of riots at Perth’s Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre.

Several incidents of violence and disruption at Banksia Hill resulted in extensive damage to infrastructure, with inmates starting fires and climbing onto roofs in hours-long stand-offs.

Police with riot gear enter the Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre in Perth's southeast in 2022. Picture: ABC

The former director general at WA’s Department of Justice gave evidence to a Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability that year, declaring the facility was in a state of emergency.

He told the commission detainees self-harmed, assaulted staff, damaged cells or escaped from cells almost every day in the first few months of 2022.

In the past year, two teenage boys have taken their own lives while being detained inside Unit 18, with the WA government facing mounting pressure for the facility to be shutdown.

Cleveland Dodd and his mum Nadene. Picture: Supplied

Cleveland Dodd had not long turned 16 when he took his own life at the facility in October last year, an inquest into his death is being held in Perth.

Another 17-year old boy took his life last month at the facility becoming WA’s second recorded death of a child in custody.

WA Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia said Unit 18 could not be shutdown without anywhere to detain the juvenile inmates that were housed there. Picture: NewsWire /Philip Gostelow

Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia told reporters on Thursday the new facility would house the cohort who are currently inside Unit 18 and would be designed to accommodate the challenges associated with them.

“There is no alternative,” Minister Papalia said.

“You cannot shut Unit 18 and put these juveniles back into Banksia Hill – they will disrupt everybody, they will hurt people, they will harm people and they’ll go back into the community more dangerous and threatening.

“What we’re doing here is purpose designing a facility for this cohort.”

An artist impression of the new juvenile detention centre to be built near Perth. Picture: Supplied

The minister said they had seen an Australian standard maximum security men’s prison at Unit 18 torn apart by its detainees, and now they were designing a facility that would accommodate the teenagers safely to reduce risks of self harm and improve safety for staff and service providers.

“This will be a maximum security facility,” he said.

“It will be, to some extent, hardened internally, but it will be designed from the ground up to house this cohort.

“This sort of real extreme things that we’ve seen in the last decade or so, appears to have escalated in terms of destructive behaviour and violent assaults and damage to facilities, so we confront the challenge we confront now.”

Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia anticipated the new facility would have high ceilings that could not be reached, and exclude embedded infrastructure that could be torn off walls and turned into weapons. Picture: Supplied

Minister Papalia anticipated the new facility would have high ceilings that could not be reached, and exclude embedded infrastructure inside cells that could be torn off walls or floors and turned into weapons or tools.

Opposition corrective services spokesman Peter Collier said the greatest stain on the Labor government was its treatment of juveniles in youth detention, especially those in Unit 18.

“Unit 18 is despicable and should have been closed the day after it was opened,” he said.

“The Cook Labor government’s punitive approach to juvenile justice, including Unit 18, does not rehabilitate young offenders and it makes Western Australia less safe.

Opposition corrective services spokesman Peter Collier said the greatest stain on the Labor government was its treatment of juveniles in youth detention, especially those in Unit 18.

“A replacement facility for Unit 18 needs to be a matter of priority for the Cook Labor government.”

Youth justice and suicide prevention expert Gerry Georgatos said it was appalling the WA Government continued the carceral and punitive approaches to the state’s most traumatised and vulnerable children who have seen suffering from the beginning of their lives.

“Suffering unimaginable to most household Australians,” he said.

Mr Georgatos supports many children from Banskia Hill and Unit 18 and knew they were being failed by the carceral nightmare from the facilities.

“Government is abominably destroying these children and making community insecure,” he said.

“The second prison is a diabolical disaster, a recipe for more self harming and deaths.”

Youth justice and suicide prevention expert Gerry Georgatos said the government has not produced any models of care that could be scrutinised.

Mr Georgatos said there was nothing restorative or life transformative about this latest announcement.

“Why are we not listening to any of the proven experts such as myself, who in eight weeks in Banksia in 2020 halved the female detainee population and in that period also de-escalated 100 per cent of potential incidents and crises,” he said.

“Why are we not learning from the proven evidence of the Nordic countries which are now reporting the world’s lowest recidivism.

“Western Australia’s most vulnerable children need seasoned experts, seasoned nurturers and environments without bars and stir crazy grotesque cells.

“There will be more deaths. It breaks my soul.”

The new facility will be built adjacent to Banksia Hill with the state government allocating $11.5m to complete detailed planning and design of the project.

It’s expected the facility that will replace Unit 18 will cost about $100m to build and accommodate high-risk youth who cannot be safely housed at Banksia Hill providing them with supervision and therapeutic support to address their behaviours and complex needs.

 

Originally published as WA government announce a major overhaul for notorious youth centre