Australia: Indigenous Teenager Dies At WA’s Banksia Hill Youth Detention Centre
An Aboriginal teenager has died at a detention centre in Western Australia after calling out from a cell prior to his death.
The 17-year-old, the second child to die in custody in the state in less than a year, was found unresponsive in his cell at Banksia Hill Youth Detention Centre on Thursday night.
Authorities told a press conference on Friday that having arrived at the centre on Tuesday morning, reportedly intoxicated, the teenager had been placed in the intensive supervision unit but was considered low risk with regards to his mental health and self-harm risk.
He was moved to the facility’s general units and had been checked on 10 times that day, before being found unresponsive on the 11th check-up, just before 10 pm on Thursday.
Staff entered his cell and performed CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) but he was unable to be revived. They were wearing radios and body-worn cameras.
The Commissioner of Corrective Services, Brad Royce, who spoke about reviewing the body camera footage, and being “satisfied” with the way staff reacted, said; “I’m satisfied that their actions around what they’re doing and the way they called for support was appropriate.” .
Royce said the teenager had called out from his cell prior to his death, but that the cries were “innocuous and nothing” and had “no suggestion of harm”.
“It was low-level stuff, innocuous. I’d rather not go into it, but it had no impact on this,” he said.
Also, the Corrective Services Minister, Paul Papalia, said the teenager had spent time outside his cell, in communal areas, before returning to his cell sometime after 6 pm, adding that there was no CCTV in his cell because the 17-year-old wasn’t considered to be at high risk of harm.
On his part, the Western Australian Premier, Roger Cook, admitted that a “failure has occurred” but expressed confidence in the State’s youth detention system.
According to him; “We’ll continue to make sure we do everything we can to improve the lives of people, not only those who work at the facility but those who are at the facility.
“I have more confidence than ever before in terms of the way we are managing our juvenile detention facilities.”
Expressing fury at the situation, Independent Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe said it was unfortunate that the state government was refusing to take responsibility.
Thorpe said; “These deaths are entirely avoidable, and the WA and federal governments are responsible. It shows that this premier, like all governments, refuses to take responsibility for the systems they’ve built that are killing our children. We’re already seeing the victim blaming that we have become so used to.”
She described the situation as a “national crisis”, insisting that federal action was needed to address it.
The WA government has continued to face strong criticism over conditions in Banksia Hill, the State’s only youth detention centre, amid ongoing reports of self-harm, suicide attempts and the destruction of cells.
This is also coming after 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd died in youth detention late last year after being found unresponsive in his cell within the Casuarina prison by staff. The incident was suspected as an act of self-harm.
An ongoing inquest into Dodd’s death has heard extensive evidence of the challenges facing the youth justice system across the state.
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. The Indigenous crisis hotline is 13 YARN, 13 92 76. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.
In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org – With The Guardian report