Two children remain in hospital after an “incident” at a Victorian youth detention centre in which a prison guard’s keys were allegedly stolen and three staff members were allegedly held hostage.
Victoria’s attorney general, Jaclyn Symes, has said there will be “consequences” over Tuesday’s incident at the Malmsbury youth justice centre in central Victoria. The incident came after the state government announced in June it would close the centre by the end of the year.
The Department of Justice and Community Safety said two children remained in hospital on Wednesday morning.
Symes confirmed reports that a guard’s keys were stolen, and said police were called to help.
“My information is that no staff were hurt, but police were called to help deal with the incident. There’ll be consequences as a result of that,” she told reporters on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for the Community and Public Sector Union Victoria, which represents public sector employees, said it understood offenders allegedly held some staff hostage.
The spokesperson said the union held concerns about the “psychological injury” for employees from the incident.
The opposition’s youth justice spokesperson, Brad Battin, told reporters he was made aware of the incident from “people on the ground” on Tuesday night, who requested anonymity. He said three people were allegedly taken hostage – two from the youth centre’s education provider and one other staff member.
“The young people had the keys and the radio, therefore they had access to who was coming in and when and also access to move through this through the Malmsbury centre without anyone getting in the way,” he said.
Battin said at one stage the rest of the staff were evacuated, leaving the three workers inside “at extra risk”.
“They’re big kids, they’re not small. The [alleged] assaults are very serious. I’ve worked inside of prison. If I was held hostage I would be absolutely panicked because of the situations you can end up in,” Battin said.
He also claimed one detainee “ended up allegedly unidentifiable” after the incident.
He urged the corrections minister, Enver Erdogan, to be transparent about the incident.
“If we want to fix the system, we have to know what’s wrong. And the best way to do that is [for the] minister [to] tell us what’s happening,” he said.
The Department of Justice and Community Safety confirmed there was an incident and said no staff were injured.
“Staff responded quickly and were able to resolve the incident,” a spokesperson said.
“Victoria police were also on site to assist if required.”
The spokesperson said the incident would be investigated and had been referred to police.
“The safety and wellbeing of staff and young people is always our number one priority,” they said.
“We are continuing to support staff and young people involved in the incident.”
A Victoria police spokesperson said the force was investigating the incident.
“Police were made aware of the incident about 4pm which reportedly involved a number of youths being involved in an affray inside the facility,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said three males were transported to hospital for treatment and a fourth was provided first aid at the scene at about 8.30pm.
The CPSU earlier this year warned that staff shortages in Victoria’s prisons were escalating tensions between offenders and correctional officers.
Symes argued the new Cherry Creek youth justice centre, which opened in August, will be better designed to handle different types of offenders.
But Battin said staff had told him they did not feel safe or respected inside detention centres, warning new and inexperienced employees were unable to deal with violent situations.
“Therefore, the experienced ones don’t want to come back to work. This is a major issue,” he said.
