Children are being locked in their cells for up to 23 consecutive hours partly due to staffing shortages at South Australia’s youth detention centre, with the system in crisis amid a spate of “shocking” self-harm incidents, the state’s guardian for young people says.
Shona Reid, the guardian and youth detention inspector, said children were becoming so distressed due to prolonged detention that they were harming themselves at the Kurlana Tapa youth justice centre.
“It’s shocking,” the eastern Arrernte woman told Guardian Australia. “We have kids directly saying they’re hurting themselves so they can have a break and go to hospital because they’re in their rooms for what they believe to be an extraordinary amount of time.”
Department data provided to the watchdog suggests daily maximum hours locked in rooms went from 18 hours and 37 minutes in February to 21hr four minutes in June. Average hours in a cell jumped from 13 hours and 11 minutes to 15hr one minute.
Average time in school dropped from just over three hours a day to one hour over the same time period.
The state ombudsman in 2019 recommended that “the department prohibit extended periods in isolation beyond 22 hours in any circumstances”.
But the data provided to Reid suggests that in June the longest known period someone was locked in their room continuously was 22 hours and 48 minutes – up from 15hr 52min in February.
Reid suggested children were harming themselves for a reprieve. Those in detention told her during weekly inspections that confinement “fucks with their heads”.
DHS said the data was “out of context” and the 21-hour number was “erroneously linked with their mental health, when in reality a young person’s mental health relates to a varying number of features, including their history of trauma”.
‘Extreme and rare circumstances’
The department said a “normal routine of the centre can see young people spending approximately 10-14 hours in their bedrooms”.
“This includes at night when sleeping, using their private bathroom facilities and at shift changeover, with longer periods on weekends due to longer sleeping times.”
The department said: “In prescribed circumstances, young people can remain in their room for up to 24 hours. However, this would only occur in extreme and rare circumstances.”
DHS also said 90% of education sessions were being offered to young people.
Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement’s criminal practice director, Amanda Lambden, who represents children as young as 10, said she was concerned about the level of services including legal appointments being delayed or cancelled.
“If Kurlana Tapa is so short-staffed and cannot provide the service, then alternatives need to be viewed or the service shut down or children not taken there.”
Erin Maher, a legal policy and advocacy officer at ALRM, said the legal service had been raising the issues since the end of 2021.
“The long lockdowns in their rooms and solitary confinement we’re seeing isn’t a new issue,” Maher said.
“DHS constantly talk about low staffing and staff turnover and all of these reasons they give around why they are not meeting the needs of the children in their care.”
Reid’s latest annual report shows 47.3% of young people admitted to Kurlana Tapa in 2021-22 were Aboriginal. There was a 24.3% increase in the number of Indigenous children detained compared with the previous 12 months.
Lambden said the short-staffing was particularly disturbing because more Aboriginal children were being taken into custody.
“This is a crisis that is just going to get worse because between 26 May and 8 June there were 24 juveniles arrested but from 6 April to 8 May there were seven. So in a month we saw a 243% increase in Aboriginal children arrested,” she said.
Lambden said staffing issues were affecting the ability of lawyers to see clients.
“We tried to get an appointment to see one of our clients [last week] and we got a response saying ‘I’ve just finished speaking with the supervisors and, no surprise, we are extremely low-staffed’.
“The low staffing at Kurlana Tapa continues. We have a case where we know it was 8pm and a child rang a lawyer here and indicated they still had not had their dinner.”
The department said it was addressing ongoing staffing issues through varying measures including recruitment, training and retention “with recruitment recently outpacing attrition”.
“Staffing shortages are being addressed,” a DHS spokesperson said.
“But this is not the sole reason of young people not having access to their lawyers on occasion. We have frequent occurrences where lawyers cancel on young people in our care.
“We have met with ARLM and have provided them with direct contacts of the general manager and assistant general manager of Kurlana Tapa so they can discuss immediately any concern regarding access. To date, no such phone call has been received to discuss access or cancellations.”
The department said the example of late meal times would be reviewed.
‘That is undignified’
Reid said a lack of appropriate staffing meant vulnerable children requiring emergency health treatment were forced to have it delivered through “cuff traps”.
“That little rectangle on the door – that is undignified and there’s no privacy,” she said. “They weren’t able to have staff escort them or take them to a place where they can have confidential services.”
SA’s human services minister, Nat Cook, said the Labor government was prioritising staffing and a therapeutic model of support at the Adelaide youth training centre.
Cook said the number of young people in custody at Kurlana Tapa had “reduced in recent years and South Australia is now one of the few jurisdictions on track to meet our Closing the Gap target of 30% reduction of Aboriginal young people in custody by 2031”.
Cook said she welcomed the advice and feedback from independent groups including the Children’s Guardian and the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement.
“The Adelaide youth training centre is close to completing a $22m upgrade and our new approach to staff recruitment and retention has been delivering positive results,” Cook said.
“We all have a responsibility to help young people in the justice system have a brighter future and deal with the traumatic circumstances that often led to their offending in the first place.”
Guardian Australia recently reported a disabled Aboriginal teenager was likely locked in solitary confinement for more than 500 days at Queensland’s Cleveland youth detention centre.
Human rights organisations say the case likely amounts to “torture” and a breach of the state’s Human Rights Act.
