lm

JOIN THE ACTION

Contact Us

Please click here to watch on the SBS website

SBS NITV (11 October 2022)

MEDIA MENTIONS

JOIN THE ACTION

Contact Us

Please click here to watch on the 7News Facebook page

7News Perth: A class action against the WA Government for its treatment of child detainees in Banksia Hill, is about to be filed in the Federal Court.

MEDIA MENTIONS

JOIN THE ACTION

Contact Us

Originally published on nit.com.au written by Giovanni Torre

Australia’s ‘systemic’ failure to protect youth in custody is at crisis point, children’s commissioner says

The National Children’s Commissioner has called for urgent reform to address Australia’s youth detention crisis.

In a speech at the launch of National Child Protection Week at Government House in Canberra on Monday, Commissioner Anne Hollonds said issues at youth detention centres across Australia showed governments where not prioritising child safety.

Ms Hollonds raised Western Australia, where some children have been moved to an adult prison, Tasmania and the Northern Territory as examples.

“The ongoing crisis in youth justice is national systemic failure to protect children and young people,” she said.

“Policies and service systems are failing to provide children and their families with the support they need, leading to more children coming into the child protection and youth justice systems.”

Ms Hollonds said children and their families had been let down for decades by governments which had failed to implement key recommendations from various inquiries and royal commissions.

She said while international evidence showed community-based early intervention was the best way to protect children.

“Our health, education and social service systems are fragmented and not fit for purpose for disadvantaged children and their families,” she said.

“Many of these families have told me directly about their frustrations at being unable to access basic support services.”

The speech came three days after lawyer Stewart Levitt, whose firm Levitt Robinson is representing former and current Banksia Hill Detention Centre in a prospective class action, urged WA Premier Mark McGowan to intervene in youth detention matters in an open letter.

“Together we should work to alleviate the immense suffering caused to egregiously disadvantaged children and youth, mostly afflicted with at least one disability, and overwhelmingly Indigenous, who have been consigned to prison in Perth,” he wrote.

A spokesperson for Mr McGowan said moving disruptive children from Banksia Hill had improved conditions for remaining inmates.

“Moving 17 of the most disruptive detainees into a secondary facility has enabled the remaining cohort at Banksia Hill to return to normal education and recreational routines,” they said.

“The 11 detainees currently held at Unit 18 have access to one-on-one support and care from a dedicated team of experienced psychologists, youth support offices, mental health workers and teachers.”

The spokesperson said the State Government was investing $25.1 million to build a new crisis care unit and an Aboriginal Services Unit to provide culturally sensitive support at Banksia Hill.

“We are also undertaking considerable work to address long standing and systemic youth justice issues in Western Australia,” they said.

“The highly successful Target 120 program, launched by the McGowan Government, has recently been expanded into additional parts of WA… (and) supports young people aged between 10 and 14 who are at risk of becoming repeat offenders and becoming lost to the criminal justice system.

“Since its inception in 2018, the program has been linked to better outcomes for participants, with half of those not re-offending since their commencement in the program.”

The spokesperson said the WA Government had allocated $15 million towards an on-country residential facility in the Kimberley for young offenders as an alternative to detention.

MEDIA MENTIONS

JOIN THE ACTION

Contact Us

Click Here to listen to The Restorative Hour

Megan & Gerry speak with Solicitor Dana Levitt about the Banksia Hill Class Action

In Megan Krakouer and Gerry Georgatos’s new radio program, The Restorative Hour, they speak with Solicitor Dana Levitt from Levitt Robinson law firm about the Banksia Hill Class Action.

The Restorative Hour airs each Thursday at 11 am on 100.9fm & Digital Noongar Radio.

Megan & Gerry speak with Solicitor Dana Levitt about the Banksia Hill Class Action

MEDIA MENTIONS

JOIN THE ACTION

Contact Us

Originally published on nit.com.au written by Stewart Levitt

LETTER: lawyer’s plea to WA Government to end suffering of children locked up far from home in Perth

I write to you as a lawyer, as a father and as an Australian-born citizen, who is a member of the Australian Labor Party.

I share all of these characteristics with you.

Together we should work to alleviate the immense suffering caused to egregiously disadvantaged children and youth, mostly afflicted with at least one disability, and overwhelmingly Indigenous, who have been consigned to prison in Perth.

Some of these children have been transported 2,225kms from the Kimberley, with attendant additional dislocation and trauma.

The incidence of self-harm and suicide attempts, over the month since your Minister for Corrective Services, Bill Johnson, transferred these children from Banksia Hill (bad enough) to Casuarina, has been appalling and a State and National disgrace.

The children’s desperate situation should tear at the heartstrings of every decent human being but particularly Australians, who should know better. Casuarina is an adult maximum security prison where, as recently as last month, an adult Indigenous prisoner died in custody, a former inmate of Banksia Hill.

The extent of the self- harm among the children transferred over the past month to Unit 18 is not trifling, exhibitionistic or merely mischievous.

These are just not stunts by delinquent children trying to draw attention to themselves. ŒR had to be administered to a child who was close to death.

Several others have been hospitalised.

Not a single beneficial program or service has been delivered to the children in Unit 18 since the transfer occurred.

Access to psychiatric assistance and legal help has been severely restricted if not denied, as have been family visits.

Children who seek to file complaints, watch as their complaints are ripped up before their eyes by YCO’s or prison guards.

This letter is not written based upon hearsay or scuttlebutt.

We have corroborative audio evidence.

Premier, I entreat you to act now to address the present and future for our troubled and suffering children and youth.

The problem is not soluble just with money. It is not about the architecture of the prisons; it is about the architecture of the system.

While we know that you cannot do anything about what has already happened other than of a compensatory nature, you certainly have a grave responsibility to address the present and the future.

We entreat you to discharge that responsibility in the interest of human decency and also, in the national interest.

Stewart Levitt is a senior partner at Levitt Robinson and a solicitor for past and present Banksia Hill inmates.

MEDIA MENTIONS

JOIN THE ACTION

Contact Us

Please click here to watch on the SBS website

SBS The Point (26 August 2022)

MEDIA MENTIONS

JOIN THE ACTION

Contact Us

Originally published on nit.com.au written by Giovanni Torre

Federal government urged to intervene in ‘dire’ WA child detention situation

The law firm acting for Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre prisoners has urged the Federal Government to intervene in Western Australia’s management of incarcerated children.

Levitt Robinson is representing current and former detainees in a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Senior partner Stewart Levitt said the children, most of whom were Indigenous, transferred from Banksia Hill to the maximum-security adult prison Casuarina in July were being subjected to poor psychological and physical treatment.

Mr Levitt said the Federal Government had powers to become involved in matters where evidence of mistreatment of Indigenous children was clear.

“It is one thing to shed tears about the Uluṟu Statement and quite another to save young lives which are being destroyed even while the referendum question to be put to voters is being drafted,” he said.

Solicitor Dana Levitt, who is preparing a class action against the Western Australian government over Banksia Hill, said National Principles for Child Safety Organisations have been serially and seriously breached by the West Australian Government.

“There is the notable absence of suitably trained prison officers and serious operational constraints at Casuarina, which make the rehabilitation of the kids there an even more remote possibility, than had they been continued to be interned at Banksia Hill, which at least is a purpose-built facility for juveniles,” she said.

Last week it was revealed that in just five weeks there had been 52 incidents of self-harm and four attempted suicides in Banksia Hill and Unit 18.

A spokesperson for WA’s Department of Justice declined to comment on the case.

“The Department would like to clarify however that the young people at Unit 18 are being managed by trained youth custodial officers supported by a range of professionals such as teachers and mental health nurses, psychologists and mentors,” the spokesperson said.

Indigenous law academic and international human rights expert Hannah McGlade said the situation is a “dire” breach of the children’s rights under international law.

“Clearly it can never be the best interests of a child to be incarcerated in any adult prison,” she said.

“The fact that several youths attempted self-harm evidences the serious trauma and abuse they felt.

“Australia has not signed the Optional Protocol (Communication) to the Convention on the Rights of the Child which provides all Australian children and youth a right to communicate to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, who oversee the Convention. Aboriginal children and youth have every right to be heard about human rights abuses in this country.”

Ms McGlade said the Federal Government could not turn a blind eye to the situation if it was serious about repairing its international reputation.

“We need to see federal leadership and action in this matter because it concerns the lives of children and youth who are clearly at risk,” she said.

A spokesperson for Federal Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said the issue was raised at last Friday’s meeting with state and territory attorneys-general.

“The government will continue to work with Western Australia, and all the states and territories, to improve the care of children in detention,” he said.

The same meeting agreed the age of criminal responsibility working group would develop a proposal to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility, currently 10, and implement UN conventions to stamp out cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment before January 20, 2023.

MEDIA MENTIONS

JOIN THE ACTION

Contact Us

Originally published on abc.net.au written by Rhiannon Shine

News

Retired Judge Denis Reynolds was the longest serving president of the Children’s Court of Western Australia from 2004 until 2018. (ABC News: Rhiannon Shine)

Transfer of Banksia Hill detainees to Casuarina Prison a sign of a ‘broken’ system, retired judge says

The longest-serving president of Western Australia’s children’s court has slammed the state’s youth justice system as “broken” and “a basket case”.

Warning: This story contains distressing content

Retired Judge Denis Reynolds said the recent transfer of teenage boys from Banksia Hill Detention Centre to an adult prison was “appalling” and “the result of ongoing incompetence”.

Mr Reynolds, who served as president of the Children’s Court of Western Australia for 14 years, was also one of the longest-serving judicial officers in the nation.

“Sad to say I think the system’s broken,” he told 7.30.

“And I would say it compromises the work of the Children’s Court.

“As a sitting judge and magistrate, if you have to decide on whether or not a child is sentenced to a period of detention, and that person’s going to go to a facility where he or she is going to be treated harshly, inhumanely and possibly unlawfully, it weighs heavily on your mind.”

Mr Reynolds said the situation at Banksia Hill Detention Centre — WA’s sole youth detention facility — had deteriorated over the last decade.

Banksia Hill has gained a notorious reputation over recent years. (Supplied)

“The court doesn’t have, and I ceased to have, confidence in the department in delivering proper rehabilitation programs to the children,” he said.

“And you may not, at the end of the day, impose the sentence of detention, when otherwise you may have.

“That’s serious because then when the child goes back into the community, they haven’t received the rehabilitation supports, [and] they go back into the community more disconnected, more rejected, angrier, and more aggressive, and more likely to commit an offence.”

‘When you want to make a monster, this is how you do it’

Mr Reynolds’ comments echoed the sentiment of current Children’s Court president Hylton Quail, who earlier this year warned “when you treat a damaged child like an animal, they will behave like an animal”.

“When you want to make a monster, this is how you do it,” Judge Quail said when sentencing a 15-year-old who had assaulted youth custodial officers.

On July 21 this year, Judge Quail described the experience of a 13-year-old child at Banksia Hill over the preceding month as “harsh, punitive and of no rehabilitative effect”.

“Of greater concern, that is the second time this week that I have come to that conclusion in sentencing a young Aboriginal child at Banksia Hill,” Judge Quail said.

The boy was being sentenced for burglaries he committed when he was 11, 12, and 13 years old.

His father was in prison and his mother died when he was six years old.

Scratched walls in cells at the Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre, published in an inspection report of the prison from April. (Supplied)

According to the boy’s detention management report read out in court, he was “very keen to learn” and had undertaken extra work in his cell while in Banksia Hill.

His teachers reported that the boy had been enthused about learning, was focused, and consistently demonstrated good behaviour.

But rolling lockdowns due to staff shortages in June and July this year meant the boy’s access to education and counselling had to be wound back and his behaviour deteriorated, so he wound up in the Intensive Supervision Unit (ISU) after acting out and threatening self-harm.

In June he had around 12 hours of education, and in July he had just five hours.

This was compared with an expectation of four and a half hours of schooling each day for a child in detention – which would equate to 135 hours for the month.

“The conditions of [the boy’s] detention have not met the minimum standards the community and court expects and the law requires,” Judge Quail said.

“I’m satisfied that [his] deteriorating behaviour in detention is directly linked to the conditions of his detention, the lengthy lockdowns he has been subject to, the failure to provide him with psychological care, education programs, stimulation, and consistent support.”

‘Kids leave worse than when they went in’

In April, WA’s prisons watchdog outlined “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” of youth detainees in the detention centre’s ISU, which is where detainees behaving badly or at risk of self-harm are placed.

Former Banksia Hill detainee Nikkea Graham spent time in the ISU, which detainees referred to as “down back”, when he was a teenager.

Both of his parents died when he was a child, and he became homeless and started stealing.

Nikkea Graham spent time in the detention centre’s ISU as a teenager. (ABC News: Rhiannon Shine)

Mr Graham said he spent two weeks in the ISU, where he was permitted limited time out of his cell to walk around a small exercise area which he referred to as a “birdcage”.

“When you put a dog in a cage and grow it up like that, you let it out one day [and] that thing is vicious,” he said.

“Same with a person. You leave them in the cell locked up for a certain amount of time, it’s going to click.

“Especially when you’re young because you’re not even fully developed yet.”

Restorative justice advocate Gerry Georgatos helped Mr Graham find his feet after he got out of Banksia.

Gerry Georgatos worked with Nikkea Graham after he left Banksia Hill Detention Centre. (ABC News: Cason Ho)

“Nikkea’s circumstance was that he was homeless, he was an orphan, and so were some of his siblings,” Mr Georgatos said.

“They had no-one to turn to. Where were the services there for them?

“We gave him the nurture that he wasn’t getting and that is why he is in a better place today.”

Mr Graham is among around 500 current and former youth detainees in Western Australia who have given statements as part of a class-action lawsuit alleging mistreatment at the centre.

Lawyer Dana Levitt said the key allegation made in the class action, which was yet to be filed in the Federal Court, was that Banksia Hill was not fit for purpose and therefore had a detrimental impact on every child who entered it.

“Rather than youth justice being rehabilitative or restorative, kids leave worse than they went in,” Ms Levitt said.

Ms Levitt said allegations included children being placed in long periods of solitary confinement and being denied access to psychosocial supports such as counselling.

“Which when you consider that nine out of 10 children in Banksia Hill suffers from a disability is even worse,” she said.

“There is an absolute abject lack of youth-centric and culturally-appropriate care inside Banksia Hill.”

A 14-year-old boy who was among those recently moved to the juvenile unit at Casuarina Prison was also a complainant of the class action.

His mother told 7.30 before he was moved, the boy had been in the ISU since May and had been self-harming.

“I am scared that he might keep self-harming,” she said.

“And then I get that phone call – every mother’s worst nightmare.

“I’ve only got one son.”

Hannah McGlade says the placement of children into adult prisons is not in their best interests. (ABC News: Rhiannon Shine)

Kurin Minang Noongar woman Hannah McGlade, who is an expert member of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues, said the UN Convention prohibited the placement of children into adult prisons unless it was in the best interests of the child.

“Incarceration is highly damaging and is even leading to deaths in custody, as we saw on the weekend with the death of [an Aboriginal man at Casuarina Prison] who had been incarcerated since childhood at Banksia,” she said.

Former judge recommends regionalised system

Mr Reynolds described the decision to send juveniles to the adult prison, albeit in a secure separate unit, as “appalling” and “the result of long-term ongoing incompetence”.

“The children, and the community as a whole, need and deserve an urgent change to a proper support and rehabilitative model based on mountains of reliable research and internationally recognised human rights,” he said.

The Director General of the Justice Department, Adam Tomison, said the decision to move the children to Casuarina was not one he took lightly.

Adam Tomison is the Director General of the Western Australian Department of Justice. (ABC News: Rhiannon Shine)

“In the last four weeks we finally got to a point where these young people were getting out of cells and assaulting staff,” he said.

“Now, at that point, I’ve got no choice but to make some decisions around how I will keep that facility safe.

“For the young people involved, who were doing things like exposing electrical wires and throwing bricks and things at staff, for the staff themselves, but also for the 80-odd young people who aren’t doing anything wrong who are just trying to have a positive experience whilst they are at Banksia Hill.”

Mr Tomison said the detention of juveniles at Casuarina Prison was temporary while a $25 million upgrade of Banksia Hill was being developed.

In 2019-20, Aboriginal children and young people in WA were 36 times more likely than non-Aboriginal children and young people to be held in youth detention.

More than two-thirds of children and young people in detention on an average day are Aboriginal.

In his time as the president of the Children’s Court of Western Australia, Mr Reynolds dealt with thousands of cases and read numerous psychological and psychiatric reports.

He said the idea that a state the size of WA had just one youth detention centre was flawed.

“My view is that what we should have is a regionalised system where we have children and particularly Aboriginal children on country, close to family, close to community,” he said.

“Get them to know themselves, get a sense of their own identity, get a knowledge of their own culture, and then have a good sense of self-worth, and in turn, be good members of the community and render the community safer.”

In May, the WA government announced it would build a dedicated residential facility to house at-risk youth on country.

MEDIA MENTIONS

JOIN THE ACTION

Contact Us

Originally published on abc.net.au written by Rebecca Trigger

News

The young offenders were moved to a separate wing at Casuarina Prison. (ABC)

WA government says transfer of Banksia Hill detainees to Casuarina has ‘worked’

Moving “violent young offenders” out of Western Australia’s only youth detention centre to a separate unit at an adult prison has “worked”, the WA government says.

The comments follow widespread criticism of conditions for children being held in detention, in both the existing Banksia Hill Detention Centre and an ad hoc facility set up in a section of Casuarina — one of the state’s maximum security male prisons.

Last month the Department of Justice moved 17 children, including one aged 14, to the unit at Casuarina, dubbed “Unit 18”.

Their hands and ankles were reportedly shackled during the move.

The young offenders were moved to Casuarina Prison after they damaged cells at Banksia Hill Detention Centre. (Supplied: Department of Justice)

The department said the move was prompted by widescale damage to cells at Banksia Hill, and detainees had to be relocated so the cells could be repaired.

Reports of self-harm emerge following transfer

There have been subsequent reports of four of those children being taken to hospital after attempted self-harm.

The West Australian has reported four children harmed themselves with shards of broken glass, something the ABC has been unable to immediately verify.

The Department of Justice declined to provide figures on the number of children at Unit 18 that had self-harmed or attempted suicide since they were moved there on June 20.

The department said there were now 16 children inside Unit 18.

Corrective Services Minister Bill Johnston said he would not comment on individual cases, but added the “good news” was that Banksia Hill was now running well.

“Whilst we still have this difficult to manage cohort at Unit 18, for the overall majority of young offenders who are at Banksia Hill, they’re now in a much better environment,” he said.

“It was not functioning to have these young offenders causing violence at Banksia Hill, and so that the other kids who were not being violent, were not acting out, were not getting the services they need because the facility was constantly going into lockdown.”

Improvements in behaviour following move

He said there had not been any significant disturbance at Banksia Hill since moving those children on July 20.

And the Minister said some of the young offenders at Unit 18 were starting to improve their behaviour.

“Now, it’s not sustained and I’m not going to comment on individual cases but as we are confident those young offenders can reintegrate into Banksia Hill, we’ll continue to bring them back,” he said.

But he conceded the Intensive Supervision Unit (ISU) at Banksia Hill was not “fit for purpose”.

The head of the Perth Children’s Court described Banskia Hill as a “dehumanising” environment. (Supplied)

“We know we need to improve the ISU so it has a more therapeutic environment,” he said.

“At the moment we have violent and disturbed offenders in ISU, that’s completely unacceptable.”

He said a new unit would be constructed at Banksia Hill to provide a more therapeutic environment.

According to figures provided to WA Parliament during budget estimates, the average hours children at Banksia Hill spent outside their cells each day was 9.37 in 2020-2021, falling to 7.6 hours in 2021-2022.

The exercise yard at Banksia Hill has been likened to a cage. (Supplied)

Self-harm on the rise at Banksia

There has been a dramatic rise in suicide attempts and self-harm incidents in the past three years.

There were two recorded suicide attempts, one serious self-harm incident and 105 minor self-harm incidents at Banksia Hill in 2020.

That compares with 31 suicide attempts, six serious self-harm attempts and 314 minor self-harm incidents in 2021.

In 2022, there had already been 20 suicide attempts and 285 self-harm incidents by June 20.

The longest-serving president of the Children’s Court of WA, retired Judge Denis Reynolds, has told the ABC the transfer of children to a unit at Casuarina represented a “broken” system.

He said the court had lost confidence in the state’s justice system.

Judge says figures likely tip of the iceberg

The former judge said the 20 suicide attempts likely only represented the tip of the iceberg.

“We need to also look at those children who have also gone back into the community,” he told ABC Perth.

“Many of them turned 18 and subsequently committed suicide in the community, or perhaps in an adult prison facility.”

He believes in excess of 100 young lives of former Banksia Hill detainees had been lost to suicide in the community in the past two decades.

Mr Reynolds said following a riot at Banksia Hill in 2013, the facility moved to a more punitive approach.

“It clamped down with grills on fences, razor wire,” he said.

“Relationships between the people that work there and the children were never valued and seen as the best means of security.”

He blamed government and the senior executive at the Department of Justice.

“I think there has been a failure at both the political and the bureaucratic level,” he said.

“There’s a lack of political will and leadership in combination with bureaucratic incompetence.”

The WA government has committed $7.5 million to building a crisis care unit at Banksia Hill and an additional $2.6 million will be spent on fencing and “hardening works” for Jasper Unit at Banksia.

Staffing boost needed to build caring relationships, Commissioner says

WA’s Commissioner for Children and Young people, Jacqueline McGowan-Jones, said children in Unit 18 needed a one-to-one care approach.

“The challenge is in having enough staff [who] can build one-to-one relationships,” she said.

“They are a very heightened at-risk cohort.”

The Commissioner says youth custodial officers need to be trained in suicide prevention. (ABC News: Gavin Johns)

She said it was well-known young people often only reached out when they were almost at crisis point.

“And so they need that one-to-one support, they need to be able to see their psych or mental health nurse or a mental health practitioner quickly when they are asking for support,” she said.

“We do need to fund an intensive model of support that provides mentors, coaches, Aboriginal cultural advisors, psychologists, mental health nurses or mental health workers.

“The youth custodial officers need to be trained in suicide prevention strategies.”

Warning against setting ‘low expectations’

The Commissioner said the prison was trapped in a cycle where staff expected the kids to do something wrong.

“If you have low expectations for your kids, whether they’re kids in detention or your own kids, they themselves will live down to that expectation,” she said.

“We know that these kids, through their neurodevelopmental delay or other challenges that they have, they don’t understand consequences.

“Just saying to them, ‘well, you trashed your cell so that’s why you’re locked down’ will make no sense to them.

“They think they did that because they weren’t being attended to or somebody doesn’t like them and treats them like they’re a criminal.”

Protesters recently took to the streets to oppose the treatment of the young detainees. (ABC News: Abby Richards)

The Commissioner said the system needed staff that could take a different approach.

“What they need is a wraparound system that will support them,” she said.

Another $3.5 million will be spent on preventing children from being able to climb onto the roofs at the facility, and another $2.5 million on upgrading the CCTV system.

The department told Parliament it had recently developed a new operating philosophy for Banksia Hill that would have a greater emphasis on rehabilitation and therapeutic models.

Recidivism rates for young offenders have been on a downward trend since 2017-18, falling from 58.7 per cent of offenders to 49.2 per cent in 2021-2022.

MEDIA MENTIONS

JOIN THE ACTION

Contact Us