In the wake of the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory, we have been heartened to see other State and Territory governments conduct reports into the conditions of their own juvenile detention centres. However, what has emerged from these reports are chilling stories of abuse, self-harm & the abandonment of our vulnerable youth to a system disinterested in their future.
As a soul-crushing illustration, reports into Western Australia’s Banksia Hill Facility revealed that young detainees have been treated like they were the most dangerous organised criminals in the country. Troublesome detainees were controlled by restraints, flash bombs and shotgun laser sights. In a similar fashion over in NSW, six heavily armed tactical police sat in Parramatta Children’s Court at an appearance for two young co-accused in February this year.
Labelled and treated as our society’s lowest from such a young and formative age, they understandably struggle to see themselves integrating into the community. Shockingly, since opening its business in 2016, the Banksia Hill Facility has seen six attempted suicides and hundreds of self-harm incidents.
Some may argue that these incidents are the result of poor funding because government resources are better put elsewhere than criminals. The report into the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre (BYDC) concluded that staff were sometimes pushed to extreme solutions granted they were frequently required to work 12-hour shifts for days or nights on end.
Yet this does not explain the deliberate cruelty that a number of youth detention centre staff inflict upon the children in their care. The use of other young detainees as ‘enforcers’ by staff to intimidate other troublesome youth at the BYDC is one example of such a baffling lack of consideration for vulnerable and marginalised people. There is clearly a wider cultural issue of indifference to issues facing at-risk young people that enables heartless actions in youth detention.
We have taken the first steps to correcting the mistakes of the past by bringing them to the surface. As informed citizens, we all play a very important role in questioning that indifference across the country. There is a compelling reason to act quickly and act now: if children receive no basic respect, as adults they will have none.
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