When an official observer visited the Don Dale youth detention centre in Darwin last year, it wasn't just graffiti they saw on the inmates' rooms.
"During the day of my inspection, [a detainee] had smeared [the] walls with blood," the observer noted in a report sent to the minister and now obtained by the ABC.
The observer was told the blood had not been cleaned for several hours because "there were not enough staff" to also maintain required supervision levels in the "at risk" area.
The brief-but-graphic details were included in documents released as part of a Freedom of Information request.
But the documents also revealed another issue of "deep concern" to youth justice advocates.
They showed that five years after a damning royal commission into youth detention, the Northern Territory government has failed to adhere to a key part of its own legislation for more than a year.
Under the Youth Justice Act, observers — known as "Official Visitors" — are meant to attend the NT's two detention facilities each month, and then report any concerns to the minister.
But between April last year and June this year — when a total of 28 visits should have occurred — only two were undertaken as part of the government-administered oversight program.
"It's extremely concerning," Acting NT Children's Commissioner Nicole Hucks said.
"Two visits over a 14-month period does not suffice."
Self-harm incidents surge inside detention centres
The revelations have emerged at a time when the number of detainees has almost doubled since the introduction of tighter bail laws last year.
The lack of frequent monitoring by Official Visitors has also coincided with a surge in self-harm incidents within the facilities.
During the past financial year, the Territory Families department said there had been 104 cases of self-harm and threats at Don Dale, and a further 35 at the Alice Springs detention centre.
Some of the children within the facilities are as young as 10 years old, almost all are Indigenous, and the majority are on remand awaiting court verdicts.
The Children's Commissioner said she too had seen blood smeared on the walls during a visit to Don Dale earlier this year.
"The fact that young people are evidently acting out in a way in which they are injuring themselves, harming themselves, is detrimental," Ms Hucks said.
"I think it has to alarm everybody."
Official Visitor program under-staffed
In addition to the frequency of visits, the Youth Justice Act also stipulates there should be at least three Official Visitors assigned to Don Dale and another three to Alice Springs.
However, during the 14-month period, only one Official Visitor was tied to the NT-wide program.
Because that person was based in Alice Springs, their single visit to Don Dale last September — which lasted a little over two hours — had to be cut short so they could catch a return flight home.
"Unfortunately, due to my limited time … I was not able to interact with further youth," they wrote in their report to the minister.
The Official Visitor's sole visit to the Alice Springs facility, also in September last year, lasted 90 minutes.
They said they were "pleased with the atmosphere" during there visit, noting the detainees "appeared relaxed and engaging well with staff".
But they also identified several issues, including:
- No psychologist had yet been appointed at the facility
- The CCTV system had experienced "occasional outages"
- The "at risk" room within the female sector was being utilised as a storage area
- A contract with a maintenance provider had lapsed
The FOI documents show the Territory Families Minister, Kate Worden, received the report in October last year.
Ms Worden did not to reply until five months later, when she advised the Official Visitor the issues had been promptly resolved.
"The superintendent engaged [a cleaning company] the afternoon of your visit to undertake a full biological clean of the room smeared with blood," the minister wrote in March this year.
Lessons from Royal Commission 'not learned'
When the royal commission handed down its findings in 2017, it said the failure of the Official Visitors program to identify serious instances of mistreatment had, in part, been "compromised by the infrequency of visits".
A First Nations-led justice coalition told the ABC that little had changed since the findings.
"This is extremely serious," Change the Record executive officer Sophie Trevitt said.
"If anything, the government should have not just learned from the royal commission but learned from these recent months when we're hearing report upon report of overcrowding and children in acute mental distress."
'It's disgraceful, it's shocking'
Australia's Human Rights Commissioner, Lorraine Finlay, said a national monitoring program was needed to prevent potential human rights abuses.
"If we don't ensure there is regular and independent monitoring of youth detention centres, we run the risk that the failings and serious mistreatment identified by the Royal Commission almost five years ago will happen again," Ms Finlay said.
Darwin barrister John Lawrence, who is involved with a group called "Close Don Dale Now", said the scale of self-harm inside the facilities was a scandal.
"It's disgraceful, it's shocking," Mr Lawrence said.
"What we are talking about here, make no mistake about it, is child abuse."
Aboriginal legal academic Eddie Cubillo, who worked on the royal commission as director of community engagement, said he was "disappointed" about the government's failure to comply with some of the recommendations.
"It's some five years later, and here we are seeing the issues that are stemming from a royal commission that gave some 227 recommendations and gave a roadmap for the Northern Territory government to implement and make some change," he said.
"We are talking about children here."
Pandemic and recruitment to blame: NT government
The Territory Families department said the COVID-19 pandemic had caused travel and availability disruptions to the Official Visitors program over the 14-month period.
However, it said an Official Visitor attended the Don Dale and Alice Springs facilities last month — the first time since September last year.
"In addition, the department is actively recruiting to its Official Visitor program to boost the number of people who can conduct these visits," it said.
The department also said a range of organisations with independent review capacities regularly visit the facilities, including the Office of the Children's Commissioner.
However, Ms Hucks said her office attends under a separate arrangement that is not a statutory requirement like the Official Visitors program.
"The royal commission … clearly made recommendations for increased oversight and scrutiny," Ms Hucks said.
"And it clearly is an inability of the department and this government to fulfill those recommendations."
A spokesperson for the Territory Families Minister said the government was making significant investments in youth justice, including a new "therapeutic model of care" in detention facilities.
In response to the revelations, Chief Minister Natasha Fyles on Wednesday said the impact of the pandemic was not a sufficient reason for the lack of regular monitoring.
"I don't think that that's good enough as an excuse," Ms Fyles told ABC Radio Darwin.
"There clearly needs to be more people recruited to be formal community visitors.
"But equally we need to ensure that we have regular visits from whomever we have appointed to those roles."
