The WA justice department raises the chronic understaffing at Banksia as having necessitated the isolation of children, often for extended periods, despite solitary confinement use on youths, as well as its prolonged use in general, breaching international minimum standards for inmates.

WA Children’s Court president Hylton Quail remarked in early 2022 that the young at Banksia are treated like animals via the practice of isolation. But as it simply continued on, more disturbances erupted and a “difficult cohort”, one as young as 14, were transferred to Casuarina’s Unit 18.

So, when these young bastardised and demonised Unit 18 detainees rioted on 15 April, injuring seven prison officers, the McGowan government feigned surprise, labelling the youths “appalling”, and has since continued on with the arrangement, with further incidents occurring.

However, key WA prison reformist Megan Krakouer, the Perth Citizen of the Year, asserts that not only are authorities refusing to look beyond the punitive when dealing with lawbreaking youths, but the state of WA has already shown in practice that its well aware other methods are more effective.

Juvenile detainees in Western Australia are being locked in their cells for 14 hours a day despite repeated warnings that extended lockdowns could spark riots.

The finding is contained in a report by the Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services following its most recent inspection of the Banksia Hill detention centre in Perth’s southeast.

Inspectors spent five days at the facility last September, when disruptions relating to the coronavirus pandemic had largely ended.

The report points to improvements made at the centre after significant volatility for much of the previous decade, describing the three years prior to the  inspection as probably “one of the most settled periods in its history.”

At the time there were just 77 detainees at the facility, a number that has since grown to about 110.

But there were concerns about the amount of time detainees spent locked in their cells, including during staff training sessions.

“As a result, young people had an average of only nine to 10 out of cell hours per day throughout 2020,” the report published on Tuesday said.

“In our view, this is fundamentally not enough out of cell time.”

The issue had been highlighted in previous reports into Banksia Hill, including a review of a 2013 riot which involved more than 70 detainees.

It found that “regular and prolonged lockdowns” had contributed to detainee frustration and to the riot itself.

The latest report urged the state government to invest in a purpose-built crisis care unit for managing detainees who were acutely unwell.

It said the existing observation cells had degraded further and were “not a therapeutic environment for young people in crisis”.

Aboriginal people continued to be over-represented, making up almost three-quarters of those detained during the inspection. The youngest detainees were aged 13.

The Department of Justice has expressed full or in-principle support for all 15 of the inspector’s latest recommendations.

Commissioner for Corrective Services Mike Reynolds said the department was “working hard to address recent instability”.

“Despite a series of recent incidents, Banksia Hill has become a more settled place in recent years under strong and stable leadership,” he said in a statement.

“This has allowed staff and service providers to focus on young people’s needs and help put them on pathways to better outcomes when they are released.”

A report by Social Reinvestment WA last month highlighted that it cost $1339 per day to detain one child at Banksia Hill compared to $93 per day for community supervision.

More than 70 organisations have endorsed the SRWA report which calls for the state to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14

A West Australian Supreme Court judge has ruled that subjecting children to prolonged isolation in cells amounted to solitary confinement, was illegal and conflicted with the basic notion of treating young people humanely.

The court found the Department of Justice unlawfully locked three young people in their cells at Banksia Hill Detention Centre, and at Unit 18, for prolonged periods over 167 days.

One young person was confined in her cell unlawfully on 12 days, another on 133 days and a third was confined to his cell unlawfully on 22 days.

Radio stations nationwide reported on a “deliberately lit” fire at Tasmania’s Ashley youth prison facility on 18 June, which saw a staff member taken to hospital for observation, while the authorities have estimated that the damage to and destruction of property would cost around $20,000.

The media, however, didn’t directly state this was all caused by uncontrollable child inmates acting out, as the public has long been primed to come to this conclusion itself, yet the articles did reinforce the usual excuse that absolves these institutions of blame, which is ever-present staffing shortages.

These reports neither made mention of Ashley having been scrutinised last year, after it emerged that three staff members had been stood down in 2020 over rape allegations, while other officers were found to have been providing detainees with their medication only in exchange for sexual favours.

Just a week before the incident in the Tasmanian kiddie prison, however, child detainees “rioted” at WA’s only youth correctional facility, Banksia Hill, and footage reveals police kitted out in military style gear, with half a dozen unarmed teens lying face down on a roof of a detention block.

But the reasons behind these Banksia Hill prisoners demonstrating via the occupation of a rooftop couldn’t be concealed, as, since the beginning of 2022, numerous court rulings and statements have reflected that the kids at this facility, some as young as 10, are regularly brutalised.

Primed for adult prison

“There are seventeen children’s prisons littered throughout the Australian continent,” said prison abolitionist and reformer Gerry Georgatos, who’s been leading a campaign against Banksia Hill. “Nearly 70 percent of children incarcerated, serve gaol time as adults.”

“Darwin’s Don Dale became infamous when the nation was shown CCTV footage of guards punching children, throwing them across concrete rooms and smashing into them,” he continued. “And it led to a Royal Commission but there was no cumulative effective changes that could turn around lives.”

That’s where Gerry’s abolitionist outlook comes into play. The detainee rights campaigner has long pushed for improved conditions on the inside, such as Medicare implementation, but, ultimately, he considers incarceration a revolving door, and truly rehabilitative measures must replace prisons.

Early 2022 saw WA Children’s Court president Hylton Quail condemn Banksia Hill for using prolonged isolation on kids, which is against UN minimum standards. And he described staff as treating children like animals and failing to acknowledge that it’s this treatment that’s resulting in the bad behaviour.

“The only child prison in WA remains as the longest ongoing riots ridden crisis, not just in Australia but in all child prisons around the world,” Georgatos added. “It’s been a decade and a half of rooftop riots, recurring takeovers of the prison by protesting children, and showdowns with the guards.”

On Thursday the WA government said it had no plans to close Unit 18 at Casuarina Prison in the near future.

The new Corrective Services Minister, Paul Papalia, said: “We can’t close it until there’s an alternative for those particular individuals… I think they just have to be there.”

It had been due to close in the first half of this year once upgrades were made to Banksia Hill Detention Centre.

On the same day Mr Papalia said Unit 18 would remain operational for the foreseeable future, Children’s Court President Hylton Quail chose to send a 17-year-old to an adult prison rather than return him to the “unrelenting conditions” in the unit.

“I have come to the conclusion …that your time in unit 18 is over. I don’t agree with all of the prosecution’s submissions. But I am satisfied that you are a risk, if you remain there, to others. I am also satisfied that you could become a risk to yourself and go down the route that J, C and so many others are on the verge of, in terms of suicide, because of those unrelenting conditions,” the judge said.

“So you can’t stay in unit 18. You have got to go to an adult prison. You are almost 18.”

The boy’s mother told National Indigenous Times her son preferred to go to Hakea adult prison than return to Unit 18.

“The judge said he was better off going straight to Hakea. But because he is not 18 yet he is in the crisis care section,” she said prior to his 18th birthday this week.

“He said crisis care is even worse than Unit 18. They are not allowed to do anything, can’t talk to anybody, even though there are other under 18s in there they are not allowed to talk to each other. He is hoping to go into the general population tomorrow.”

She noted there were significant restrictions on movement and activities in crisis care “because technically crisis care is for people who are suicidal”.

“One of his friends has to stay in there for longer because he doesn’t turn 18 until July,” she said.

She told National Indigenous Times the young detainees needed to engage with programs to prepare them for life after prison.

“The authorities say they offer education programs but I don’t know if they are getting them. It would be good if they can do courses outside (while serving their time), develop skills they can use in the community. When his cousin got out he did a course through Mervyn Eades (Ngalla Maya) and he is working in the mines now,” she said.

“It’s harder to get them to participate in courses once they are out, if they are able to do them while incarcerated then once they get out, they already have a head start.”

She noted that a teacher who had worked in Unit 18 told the court “she only got 30 minutes with him, 30 minutes per kid per day”.

Her son was sentenced to 23 months in total for a number offences, including some while in detention.

She said he will be eligible for parole “in four or five months”, having already served part of his time when his sentence was handed down on 15 June.

“I know that juveniles have some support programs when they get out but for adults I am not aware of them. Once they get out if they can get a start somewhere they have a chance,” she said.

“I went up (to Hakea) on Friday (16 June) to book a visit and give him some money. The system couldn’t process it because his birthdate made him younger than 18. Eventually a staff member helped us book visits, and the cashier took the money for him – they were reluctant to do so because we weren’t able to use the process, but the process doesn’t work for anyone under 18.

“The cashier said to the staff member ‘if we are going to have more 17 year-olds coming through something has got to be changed’.”

She noted that one young detainee transferred to adult prison applied for a transfer to Broome Regional Prison so he could be closer to his family, as Banksia Hill is the only youth detention centre in the state.

A Department of Justice spokesperson told National Indigenous Times that as of June 20, there are 13 detainees in Unit 18.

“Teachers attend Unit 18 daily. Providing education and other services to young people in detention is a Department priority when the safety and security of staff, including teachers, and all detainees can also be managed. Young people are provided education by fully qualified and registered teachers during school terms when it is safe to do so,” they said.

“There is one young person, who turns 18 next month, who is being held in an adult prison. The Children’s Court has the authority in the relevant legislation to remand or sentence a young person from the age of 16 years to an adult prison.

“The placement of young prisoners in the custodial estate is carefully managed to ensure they are accommodated in a safe and suitable location.”

Megan Krakouer, who has worked with Banksia Hill detainees to build a class action against the state of Western Australia, told National Indigenous Times it was a “disgrace” that young people would stay in Unit 18, and that people under 18 were in Hakea prison.

“This is an indictment of the WA government and the Commissioner for Children and young people who shifted the young people to Casuarina prison last year saying it was the best of a number of bad options,” she said.

“We now have the worst rates of youth incarceration in the country. The government needs to do what they should of from the beginning: speak to the families and show some respect. This is now under the watch of the incoming Premier, Mr Cook… it is disappointing.

Some West Australian juvenile offenders are being sent to the Hakea maximumsecurity men’s jail, in the latest sign of the stress in the state’s prison system.

The Australian has learned that the Children’s Court has sent multiple under-18s to Hakea in recent weeks, amid ongoing issues inside both the Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre and the controversial Unit 18 at the Casuarina men’s prison.

The Children’s Court has the ability to sentence or remand juveniles aged 16 or over to adult prisons under the state’s Young Offenders Act.

WA is also starting to move juveniles inside Banksia Hill and Unit 18 over to men’s prisons once they turn 18, having scrapped a longstanding policy in which those who turned 18 inside the juvenile centre would remain there for the duration of their sentence.

Some of the youths sent to Hakea are understood to be turning 18 soon. In the meantime, according to a family member of one of the boys, they will be kept within Hakea’s crisis care unit.

One of the family members, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the sentencing judge had cited the current conditions within Banksia Hill and Unit 18

in making his decision to send them to Hakea. The youths, the family member said, were told they would have better access to services inside Hakea than they would within the juvenile centres.

Aboriginal activist Megan Krakouer, who is director of the National Suicide Prevention and Trauma Recovery Project, said sending juveniles to Hakea was a poor reflection on the state of Banksia Hill and Unit 18.

“Why does a magistrate think that it’s in [the juveniles’] best interest to send them to an adult facility? That basically is a failure of Banksia Hill,” she said.

WA’s handling of juvenile offenders has been under intense scrutiny in recent months.

The Australian last week revealed that the rate of self-harm and suicide attempts inside Unit 18 – which was established last year as a temporary centre for Banksia Hill detainees who were deemed to be particularly disruptive – had spiked to record high levels in recent months. That increase coincided with a drop in the average out-of-cell hours for the Unit 18 detainees, with figures showing that they averaged just over 90 minutes a day out of their cell during May.

WA’s Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services this month released a scathing report into the state of Banksia Hill and Unit 18, finding that the juvenile detention system was in an “acute crisis”.

There have also been major disturbances at both centres in recent months, most notably a riot at Banksia Hill that caused millions of dollars in damage.

New Premier Roger Cook has identified the state’s juvenile detention system as a key priority for his government, moving the corrective services portfolio from Bill Johnston to Police Minister Paul Papalia. Mr Papalia has said he had been asked by Mr Cook to focus immediately on Banksia Hill. But he has already ruled out any closure of Unit 18 in the short term.

“Unit 18 will be there for some time because we need the ability to isolate the most problematic and challenging individuals, not as a punishment but as a means of securing the rest of the 70 or 80 individuals and enabling them to receive good rehabilitation and the best prospects,” he said in parliament late last week.

“Unit 18 is the best place for them. A range of services are available for them, and some really good and dedicated people are providing them support, but it must be done in an environment that is safe.”

The latest Closing the Gap figures, released last week, showed that WA had the highest rate of Indigenous youth incarceration in Australia of 44.6 per 10,000 people compared to the national average of 28.3.

The rates of suicide attempts and self-harm within WA’s controversial Unit 18 juvenile detention facility have spiked to record levels, heaping pressure on WA’s
new corrective services minister to overhaul the state’s treatment of young prisoners.

New figures show that there were almost twice as many self-harm attempts within Unit 18 in May than there were for the first seven months of the unit’s existence. The surge came as prisoners were confined alone to their cells for an average of 22.5 hours a day over the month. The figures also show that there were five suicide attempts inside Unit 18 during April and May.

Unit 18 was established within the maximum security Casuarina men’s prison last July to accommodate prisoners from the Banksia Hill juvenile detention facility that were deemed to be particularly disruptive. The unit has held 14 to 15 juvenile prisoners on average in recent months.

The treatment of children inside Unit 18 has drawn widespread criticism from current and former Children’s Court presidents and advocates, and both units have been marred by ongoing riots. The biggest of those, which occurred last month, caused tens of millions of dollars of damage at Banksia Hill.

The latest self-harm figures follow a scathing recent report from the Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services into Unit 18 and the main Banksia Hill juvenile
detention facility.

The report found that the McGowan government’s controversial decision to ship a cohort to Unit 18 had worsened, rather than improved, conditions inside both
facilities. It found “every element of Banksia Hill was failing”.

New WA Premier Roger Cook has made juvenile detention an early priority of his government, shifting the corrective services portfolio from Bill Johnston to Police Minister Paul Papalia.

Information tabled in the WA parliament this week showed that there were three suicide attempts, one major self-harm incident and 49 incidents of minor self-harm within Unit 18 in May. The previous month saw two suicide attempts and 20 minor self-harm incidents inside the unit.

The rates compare to seven attempted suicides, two serious self-harm incidents and 25 minor self-harm incidents within Unit 18 between July and February.
A spokesman for the WA Department of Justice said the recent rise in incidents at Unit 18 related more to the individuals rather than a change in conditions at the facility.

He said detainees often presented with histories of trauma, substance abuse and self-harm and a higher incidence of intellectual disability and mental illness.

“Self-harm can occur for a variety of reasons and these behaviours can continue to be seen once in custody,” the spokesman said. “One detainee was involved in 17 of the incidents of minor self-harm in April and May.”

The data was tabled in response to a question from Greens MP Brad Pettitt, who told The Australian the self-harm figures were “disturbingly high”.

He said Banksia Hill and Unit 18 appeared to be stuck in a downward spiral, in which lockdowns drove poor behaviour, which in turn drove increased staff
departures, which required more lockdowns due to labour shortages. “Being in the equivalent of solitary confinement for 22 hours a day is pretty
appalling,” he said.

“There needs to be a radical shift to stop this spiral at what must be one of the worst prisons in the country.” The latest OICS report found there was a “major
deficiency” in staffing at Banksia Hill and Unit 18, including a significant loss of experienced staff through resignation, retirement and workers compensation.

THERE ARE 17 children’s prisons littered throughout the Australian continent. Nearly 70% of children incarcerated serve gaol time as adults. There are two children’s gaols in the Northern Territory — one in Alice Springs, the other is Don Dale in Darwin.

Don Dale became notoriously infamous when the nation was shown CCTV footage of guards punching children, throwing them across concrete rooms and smashing into them. It led to a Royal Commission but there was no culmination to effective changes that could turn around lives.

Don Dale is not alone. The only child prison in Western Australia remains the longest ongoing riots-ridden crisis, not just of all Australia’s 17 children’s gaols but of all child prisons in the world. It has been a decade and a half of rooftop riots, recurring takeovers of the prison by protesting children and showdowns between the children and the guards.

There is no other comparison between the crisis that is Banksia Hill to any other child prison in the world.

Children’s prisons throughout Australia, from Cleveland to Don Dale, to Ashley to Banksia Hill miserably fail Australia’s most vulnerable and marginalised children — many who never had a chance from the beginning of life.

The children are demonised and vilified by governments, by far too many in society, as the nation remains resistant to restorative works. It refuses to invest in turning young lives around, refuses to admit the need for community reckoning and heads us to the majorly compassionless, punishing beyond penance to hovelling children in abysmal conditions and ever-worsening deprivations till they can gaol them as adults for longer periods in adult prisons.

Western Australia has the nation’s harshest sentencing regime, the most punishing, with mandatory sentencing on a suite of offences that no other state or territory would countenance. Some sentencing regimes collapse into effective indefinite detention. Post-sentence supervision orders can be so harsh that returning to gaol is guaranteed because of parole breaches. Western Australia is the nation’s mother of gaolers and harsher on aberrant children than any other Australian jurisdiction.

The campaigns to shine a light on the need for the urgent salvation, healing and redemption of Australia’s most disadvantaged children have been a relentless slog. It is humanity awry and afar. I have campaigned for the children of Banksia Hill for a decade and a half. Not only for the children of Banksia Hill but for an end to Australia’s 17 children’s prisons, which are more than a gateway, if not a turnstile, to adult prisons.

What should be highlighted?

I have campaigned for comparative minor reforms such as Medicare in children’s prisons, in all of this nation’s 115 prisons. If we cannot secure a minor reform of Medicare to child prisoners, then what hope for the more substantive reforms that can underwrite the transformational? The only Australians denied Medicare are the nation’s incarcerated, including ten-year-old child prisoners. This is an abomination. This reprehensibility culminates in most of the children and adults leaving prisons in a worse state of health.

But I am not just a campaigner and advocate, I am a deliverer of changed lives, having worked, funded and unfunded, remunerated and as a volunteer with children pre-release, post-release and with children diverted to alternate settings to incarceration. I have turned around many lives. I am not just a commentator or critic but someone who has worked with thousands. I want to focus on the ways forwards. Narratives need to change.

In the meantime, the Levitt and Robinson Lawyers Class Action against Banksia Hill and the Western Australian Government, which I helped galvanise, is journeying through the Federal Court. It represents thus far more than 700 plaintiffs and by the time it culminates, more than likely by the end of next year with thousands of plaintiffs, hopefully at least 3,000.

Banksia Hill crises and the relentless failing of children by the state have become a sore point for the Western Australian Government these last three years, a brutal public spectacle that has scolded more scars on the Government than any other issue. The West Australian newspaper has been relentless in holding the State Government to account these last three years. The ABC continues taking the crisis to the nation and the National Indigenous Times keeps on calling for change.

All the media has had enough of the compassionless rhetoric by the State Government and the inactions of the Federal Government to take a stand on behalf of the children of Banksia who for now they are leaving behind.

I cannot emphasise enough the failure that Banksia Hill as a rehabilitative setting as it was touted when opened in 1997. At least 80% of children aged 10 to 16 who are hovelled into Banksia Hill will return at least once, many of them dozens of times. This statistical narrative has been the story of Banksia Hill for more than a quarter of a century, effectively since its establishment. Claims that any part of Banksia Hill as a success story in the face of this chronically acute statistic are shameful stonewalling and gaslighting. It is a wicked sin.

In that same period of a quarter of a century, there have been evidenced transformations, culminating in changed lives and the radical reduction of reoffending, particularly in northern Europe, but Australian governments – federal, state and territory – turn a blind eye. These are children.

What are the ways forward?

In March 2020, during the height of the COVID pandemic in Australia, Western Australia’s borders were closed and monitored. Nearly all Western Australian residents were quarantined in their homes. This lasted for eight weeks till late May. Only essential workers were allowed to move around. I was one of those workers during the quarantine.

In late March 2020, on the first day of the quarantine, I was summoned to Banksia Hill with colleague Megan Krakouer. I was called in by the then commissioners of the Department of Corrective Services, Tony Hassall, Cheryl Clay and Kymberley McKay.

The staffing levels to the crisis-ridden Banksia Hill were at their record lowest, with non-essential workers quarantined to their homes and all external services pulling out all their staff. The management of Banksia Hill was awry with hysteria as to how to deal with the protests, the dissent and the breakouts from cells of the children.

I had spent years pleading to one government after another to let people like me help turn around the lives of the children. I had been – and still am – seen as a bleeding-heart radical. Despite my record of turning around the lives of some of the most disadvantaged children and youth, my chronic outspokenness for understandings of compassion was held against me.

I proudly admit I am a radical bleeding heart and I never give up on turning around lives. As you would want with your children. Not all the qualifications in the world can match the seasoned expertise of compassion and of believing in people, whether children or older, till they believe in themselves.

Summarily, in those eight weeks in Banksia Hill, till our last day on 22 May, I and Megan de-escalated every potential incident we came across or that we were called upon to de-escalate. During those eight weeks, there were no protests or breakouts from cells and compounds, no rooftop riots, and no clashes between disgruntled and stir-crazy children and the guards.

I must reiterate that the staffing levels at Banksia Hill were at the record lowest during those eight weeks. Therefore, it is also a false narrative to argue for more guards. This lie is dangerous and compounds and entrenches failure and trauma. You only need more guards if you intend a harsher punitive narrative and intend to regularly lock the children in their cells most of the day and guarantee stir-craziness.

Corralling children in their cells leads to their crying out and eventually culminates in rebellion. This practice of what is argued as indefinite confinement in a cell is unlawful and has been ruled so by the Supreme Court of Western Australia — and its ongoing practice is potentially contempt of court.

During those eight weeks at Banksia Hill, I helped more than halve the prisoner population of the girls. Children aged 11 to 17. There were 18 girls incarcerated in Banksia Hill on our first day and on our last day, there were seven. During the eight-week period, there was a turnover of 31 female prisoners. We worked with the majority. We had taken it upon ourselves to work beyond our remit with Banksia Hill child detainees, in that we were asked to de-escalate incidents and just “engage” children.

We wanted to make a difference, to demonstrate the long overdue restorative ways forward, to make sure that most of the children we assisted did not re-offend and went on to supported productive lives. Our team was only three-strong — Megan, me and my daughter, Connie Georgatos. We pursued identity documents, public housing applications, Centrelink applications, Medicare assistance and educational pathway assists. Connie addressed issues we believe should have been addressed while the children were in Banksia Hill. Too many came out with none of these rudimentary fundaments.

I surprised Banksia Hill management by demanding that we would work with the children, not from an office in the administration building with scheduled visits. I won the right to work with the children in their compounds for as long as needed, with guards at a distance. We demanded access to the containment unit known as the Intensive Support Unit or as known by the detainees, the “cage”.

We unpacked stories, because we spent hours day after day with the children, listening to the children without interruption. We were age content-sensitive, contextualised and cared. We crafted support post-release. We did the never-before and supported their families and carers on the outside and when the children were released.

The substantive supports on the outside do not exist. The diversionary programs on the outside are not 24/7 and what little exists cannot meet the needs of the majority of the children.

Many children who finish up in Banksia Hill are homeless, some street-present homeless, transient and housing insecure, and have no safety nets. They need housing security and assisted living. I have highlighted orphans being failed, of a 12-year-old orphan who was street-homeless, incarcerated 12 times in Banksia Hill. He is now nearly 16 years of age and incarcerated in Banksia Hill more than 20 times.

A couple of years ago, his 15-year-old brother, who had also had spells in Banksia Hill, was living a form of homelessness – overcrowding – with more than a dozen others, itinerant in a small social housing dwelling. He is one of more than a hundred Banksia Hill children over the last two decades who are deaths after custody, mostly by suicide as he was and others to substance misuse. They lived on the run from unaddressed traumas, unsupported, each day as if their last.

These two orphans were two among eight siblings. I have often referred to them. Four would finish in juvenile detention facilities across two states, with three at Banksia Hill. One of them, now 20 years old, I have supported since he walked into my then office four years ago. He and his partner, and a brother, walked into my then office off the streets, out of pavement sleeping homelessness. They were exhausted and dishevelled. They were dog-tired, on the run and would have finished up soon locked up for a meal, shower and bed.

How do we fail homeless orphans? This haunts me to this day. I have supported the 20-year-old and his partner since then. He has never re-offended. Without me, he would have become one of the 70% who go onto adult gaols post-juvenile detention. I put him through an employment training program and drove him to training every day, along with his young uncle, who also graduated from the program and has been working ever since.

I have driven quite a few former Banksia Hill detainees to the training programs I sponsored them to complete. With his tickets and qualifications, he has worked in traffic control and construction sites. He is now completing an electrical trades apprenticeship. I secured him housing and helped furnish his home. I visit him and his partner every month. They have a baby and are thriving. All they needed was “someone”.

Back to those eight weeks in Banksia Hill, I applied to the Children’s Court for the release of many of the female detainees. Some had committed reprehensible crimes and dangerous actions, the majority more banal offending. Banksia Hill management was surprised that I secured the release of the children. It was on a release and support basis, which we provided to the children to whom we committed ourselves, even post-release which we were not funded to provide. The then commissioners of the Department of Corrective Services were ecstatic. Commissioner Tony Hassall went into the media extolling our work as “unique” and successful.

We showed restorative works, if given the latitude needed, to turn around even the most troubled lives. At first, it made me sad to reflect that the commissioners considered the completion of parole a success.

One child we supported had never successfully completed parole. She was returned to Banksia Hill on four occasions after breaching parole. On her fifth attempt, after her last stretch, a year inside and our first attempt with her, she completed parole. We supported her for nearly two years unfunded. After the eight weeks, we secured her a home, training to employment and were there during stressful times. She had no safety net. We became it.

We were to be funded further but were not because of the class action we helped galvanise. That is a sad indictment of the State Government getting in the way of funding procurement of a successful nurturing program. The Department of Corrective Services offered us 15 months of funding not long after the eight weeks of service but because we brought on the class action to compel wider social reforms by an unresponsive government, we were told by the commissioners “those above them” wanted us out of Banksia Hill and all the state’s prisons.

We delivered some nine months of record-breaking work in West Australia’s largest prison, Acacia, where nearly one in four of all the state’s prisoners are incarcerated. We reduced the self-harms and attempted suicides among First Nations prisoners to record lows. We changed lives, First Nations and non-First Nations. Those nine months were another period of calm like our eight weeks in Banksia Hill. Since our departure from Acacia Prison on 25 June 2021, Acacia has returned to being crises-ridden, as is the constant fundament of most of Western Australian prisons.

What more on the ways forward

Early last year, I paid for the training to various qualifications of five former Banksia Hill children — three First Nations and two non-First Nations. I changed some lives with positive pathways. Two of them I drove every morning to training. All had tragic stories. One had been the street homeless orphan I mentioned earlier. He is now an electrical tradie apprentice.

I am these days retired, due to living with Parkinson’s Disease but remain a volunteer mentor and do what I can from my small-time charity, The Georgatos Foundation which Levitt and Robinson Lawyers manage, with the firm’s legendary principal lawyer, Stewart Levitt, as the chair of the board.

In recent times, I have worked quietly with eight Kimberley youths and two other Western Australian youths, most of who had been in and out of Banksia Hill and had been labelled as dangerous recidivists. Of the ten, eight are First Nations, two non-First Nations.

I thank Coles for taking on some of these children while I mentored them and got them some qualifications. Coles employed them in various roles and they turned up each day, habituating positives and protective factors. This was vital to grounding the ways forward and securing them with subsequent employment in trades, FIFO and apprenticeships. It takes a village.  

People need people. Children and youth need nurture. They need believers.

In one of my fast-approaching final acts, I paid for the youths’ training in various trade qualifications through various providers. I mentored daily till they no longer needed me. This should have been the Banksia Hill story all along.

We need to right wrongs. I cannot emphasise this enough. I have seen first-hand these children living each day as if it’s their last. So, I have been compelled to respond with a sense of urgency, advocate and campaign on their behalf as if each is my last, supporting them to turn their lives around with uninterrupted urgency. I see this as a crusade because they have nowhere else to turn.

I am now volunteering as a mentor to nearly 40 former Banksia Hill children. Since having been in their lives, the near-all have not returned to Banksia Hill or to adult prison. I also mentor some of the children who are paroled. It’s about being there for them. They want hope. They do not want to live incarcerated.

With most of them, every month I do the in-person stop to those of the 40-odd I have helped over the last couple of years. I bring groceries or grocery vouchers I have paid for. We’ve got to give where can.

We “talk life”. Most of them had been gaoled as children more than once, some numerous times. School-age children sitting in gaols, some as primary school-aged children.

I’ve helped some of them to public housing tenancies, shared accommodation — a room of their own or a humble private tenancy. I’ve helped some with counselling, stabilisations, training programs, employment and education.

I remind them that their families, however downtrodden some of them are, are in their corner, even if it’s not spoken. I remind them their families, no matter even if estranged, look up to them.

Their beliefs determine their “ground”, solid ground. Without nurture, without validation, they are forgotten. The children in Banksia Hill, when demonised and vilified by governments, are slagged into forgotten children.

I can’t argue enough that people need people. This has been the bedrock of my support – which I never time-limit – and rather make outcomes relevant. This is my rule with everyone I have supported over nearly a half-century — people leaving prison, the homeless, impoverished migrants and people from acutely disadvantaged backgrounds.

So, my motto is to believe in people until they believe in themselves. We’ve got to approach everyone, particularly a child, with love and kindness. Everyone is entitled to redemption, and undeniably a child. Fifty years of supporting people has taught me this — in my experience, this premise is irrefutable, immutable. To stray from it is beyond risky. I focus on facts, statistics and evidence.

Of the 40 post-Banksia children, nearly a third are employed, several are studying towards a tertiary qualification and most have not been incarcerated again. As children, before I met them, many had been caged in the “Intensive Support Unit” — a concrete floor dark space.

I hope the class action led by Steward Levitt and his daughter, Dana Levitt, is successful, leading to changes and compelling social reforms.

Parkinson’s Disease is deteriorating me, physically and cognitively. Whatever drops of energy are left of me, they go to these left-behind, held-back children. If we can get the support right for the children, we can then get it right for the youth and older filling adult prisons.

We need nurture on tap, seasoned expertise in mentoring, big brother and big sister mentoring. We need psychosocial-filled outreach, assisted retention in independent living where needed and assisted support to families and carers. We need age-sensitive settings, robust community settings, and genuine diversionary programs with authentic outcomes-based pathways to education and employment.

We need the age of culpable criminal responsibility raised to at least 14 but ideally to various age-sensitive-tiered degrees to 18. We need all models of care to be driven by compassion, by never giving up, by remembering these are mostly children who never had a chance from the beginning of life and that as an arguably “civil” society we owe them. We need to close Banksia Hill and where secure settings are needed, they are places of love. And if so, then they have hope of the rehabilitative, restorative and transformational. Without love, they will be empty buzzwords, as has been the case with Banksia Hill since its inception. The statistics do not lie.

Had we remained in Banksia the three years since our eight weeks, uninterrupted, the likelihood is we would have made a positive difference in the lives of the couple of thousand children who have been churned in and out and in, with most to adult gaols thereafter. Muddled-minded PR-sensitive politicians got in the way of this. The world is messy but it should never be this way — especially for children.

Let us journey forwards, not backward.