New approach up north could combat WA’s youth crisis: former inspector
By Aaron Bunch
Warning: This story carries the name and image of a deceased Indigenous person, with his family’s permission.
Each youth in detention costs taxpayers about $1 million a year, a former prison watchdog has told an inquest, while calling for change in a system at “crisis point”.
Cleveland Dodd.
An inquest for Indigenous teenager Cleveland Dodd, who fatally self-harmed in custody, is continuing in Perth.
The 16-year-old was found unresponsive inside a cell in Unit 18, the troubled youth wing of a high-security adult prison, in the early hours of October 12, 2023.
He was taken from Casuarina Prison to hospital in critical condition and died about one week later, causing outrage and grief in the community.
Former inspector of custodial services, Neil Morgan, said Western Australia’s youth detention facilities was at crisis point, and it was time for a new approach.
He said an organisational “shake-up” was required, and the justice department needed to be split up because it had grown too large.
“The government needs to bite the bullet and say: this is a crisis point,” he told the coroner on Monday.
He said a separate youth justice department was required.
Professor Morgan said it previously cost about $500,000 a year for each youth in detention, but the figure was likely to have increased to about $1 million.
“We need to sit back and say, ‘how do we best spend that money?’ and that is probably a job that is best done by a standalone, small, focused department,” he said.
Professor Morgan also called for smaller regional youth detention centres and for detainees to be separated by age, so children were not mixed with older teens.
He said the Kimberley was as far from Perth as Russia was from the UK.
“It’s probably not much different in terms of culture [distance],” he said.
“Why do we think that will work?”
Prof Morgan also raised concerns over Casuarina Prison’s Unit 18, where Cleveland was held, which was set up as a temporary facility for young detainees three years ago.
“There has to be a closure date,” he said.
The unit was supposed to be open for one year from July 2022 after a riot at Banksia Hill damaged that facility.
The inquest continues on Tuesday, when the current inspector of custodial services, Eamon Ryan, is scheduled to give evidence.
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