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There's no excuse for child abuse

Children's Rights

Author

Megan Mitchell, National Children's Commissioner

Earlier this year I visited the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin, along with a number of other centres where children are detained across the country. The purpose of the visits was to see how young people were being treated and how their rights were being protected. I toured the facilities and spoke to just under 100 children and young people in detention.

I made these visits before Four Corners revealed footage of young people being gassed, stripped, pinned down, hooded and trussed to a chair. When that story broke, we asked ourselves as a nation, “How did this happen on our watch?”

The answer is a combination of institutional arrangements, poor conditions, low skills, a culture of impunity and punishment, and a lack of transparency.

When I visited, Don Dale had all the hallmarks of an ageing maximum security adult facility. It was run down and many areas had no air conditioning, fans, or adequate natural light. Despite this, it appeared that children were often confined in these areas for lengthy periods. There were few activities or programs available and there was a harsh internal system of reward and punishment.

This was not a place that most reasonable people would consider suitable for children.

A Royal Commission has now been established in the Northern Territory. The Prime Minister’s quick and decisive leadership in establishing this Royal Commission strongly suggests that the government is committed to reform.

But, this is not just an issue in the Northern Territory. The operations of other centres and the systems that underpin them are now the subject of independent or internal reviews across the country.

Australia has around 900 children and young people in youth justice detention at any one time. I have no doubt there are sub-standard practices in other facilities across the country.

The children and young people I spoke to knew that they had temporarily lost their right to freedom. But, they were largely unaware that they had any other rights – in fact, 31% said they were not told about their rights when they arrived.

Contact with loved ones, education, access to health and professional services were among the rights they most valued. They wanted to be treated respectfully by staff “because we aren’t all bad people just cos we’re locked up.”

During our conversations, the children and young people raised the damaging effects of collective punishment, body searches, and the use of physical force. They told me that long periods of segregation or isolation as a form of punishment left them “sad”, “angry” and “depressed”. One child felt “like an animal”. 

Many of these children are hard to handle. They are not angels. Many come from backgrounds where they have been exposed to violence, abuse and neglect and this has contributed to their offending behaviour. At times they can be a danger to themselves and others, including workers and other young people.

But, treating children in abusive ways and disregarding their basic human rights only reinforces their distrust of authority and cements in their minds that violence and aggression is normal.

Isolation causes profound neurological and psychological damage such as depression, hallucinations, panic attacks and cognitive deficits. It is particularly harmful to young people because it impedes the development of the part of the brain responsible for planning, strategising and understanding consequences.

Given all the evidence about how damaging the use of isolation is for children and young people, it is deeply disturbing that this appears to be a regular practice in many centres.

By neglecting children’s rights in these contexts we are most likely to entrench criminal associations and identities, and provide a feeder service to the ranks of the adult criminal justice system. Not only does this make no sense in terms of building a safe cohesive society, it is a bad investment that costs more than $400 million annually.

We need highly skilled and trained workers who are able to form and model constructive respectful relationships with these young people and de-escalate incidents without resorting to force wherever possible. We need to emphasise education and rehabilitation, or we miss a unique opportunity to influence developing brains and evolving human beings in positive ways.

But to be confident that we are never again confronted with what happened at Don Dale we also need to improve how we monitor these places.

Australia signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) in 2009. Ratifying OPCAT would provide a national monitoring and oversight system for places of closed detention like Don Dale. This is not about more bureaucracy, it’s about refining and strengthening current processes and filling policy and practice gaps within a consistent framework that aligns with community expectations.

Strong oversight would ensure that these facilities are run in line with community standards, lift the quality of treatment of detainees, and help prevent incidents occurring in the first place. It would also create much greater transparency around what goes on in places of detention.

There should always be consequences for wrongdoing. But there is never any justification for the abuse of children – no matter what they have done.

Published in:

Sydney Morning Herlad

Published URL:

Children in detention have rights