A former Inspector of Custodial Services in Western Australia is calling for the state's troubled youth detention facility Banksia Hill to be closed as soon as is practicable and the criminal age of responsibility raised to 14.
Neil Morgan, now an emeritus professor at the University of WA, told ABC Radio Perth the facility was a "disaster", with too many inmates of differing ages, genders and situations housed under the same roof, and plagued by staff shortages.
"When you go into a facility, and you see little 10-year-old children from the Kimberley, and remote parts of Western Australia, tiny little boys, and sometimes girls in there alongside large, 18,19-year- old metropolitan youth, nobody in their right mind would surely think that it's a good idea to put such a mix together," he said.
"We put remand kids in with sentenced kids, even though when young people come in off the street, and they're on remand, they're likely to be even more volatile.
"So that's an unsettling influence."
'Depravation is child abuse' at Banksia Hill
Mr Morgan's comments come after widespread criticism of the centre and the government's management of it, which has amplified since the transfer of 17 young inmates from Banksia Hill to the adult Casuarina Prison in July for unruly behaviour.
Former Children's Court president Denis Reynolds described the decision as "appalling", comments echoed several times by current president Hylton Quail, who has in some cases refused to impose custodial sentences on young offenders to avoid them being sent back to Banksia Hill or to Casuarina.
Sentencing two teenagers to non-custodial sentences for a series of burglaries last month, Judge Quail slammed the repeated lockdowns at Banksia Hill that left young inmates locked in their cells, containing little more than a bare mattress on the floor, for up to 23 hours a day with no access to education, recreation or stimulation.
"The deprivation and solitary confinement is a form of child abuse inflicted on vulnerable and severely damaged children by the executive and the government, which causes short-term and long-term damage," he said, warning that the government risked being found in contempt of court if it continued to treat children in such a "barbaric" manner.
In August, Supreme Court Justice Paul Tottle ruled the WA Government had broken the law by locking children in their cells for long periods, sometimes 24 hours a day, which caused "considerable" long-term harm.
He noted the long lockdowns were mostly the result of chronic staff shortages, not the behaviour of the detainees themselves.
Call for new facility
Mr Morgan said the cost of keeping young people at Banksia Hill was well over $500,000 per inmate per year.
"Now, I think anybody in Western Australia would say we deserve something better for our money than having a recidivism rate of 70 per cent and having young people locked in their cell for 23 hours a day," he said.
In April the McGowan government announced it would spend $25 million on upgrading Banksia Hill, just a day before the current Inspector of Custodial Services, Eamon Ryan, delivered a blistering assessment of a facility in crisis in a report to Parliament, describing the "cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions" young Banksia Hill inmates had to endure.
Mr Ryan found the facility was "not fit for purpose".
Mr Morgan said Banksia Hill was beyond redemption as a facility for young people, and the government should instead focus on investing in smaller, purpose-built facilities.
"The government needs to get back to the drawing board, it needs to invest in smaller facilities that are focused on need, age, gender, cultural background, and start delivering what these young people need," he said.
"And we need to invest in alternatives to custody to keep young people as far as possible."
Lift age of criminal responsibility
He said this included raising the age of criminal responsibility in WA to 14 years, from the current 10 years of age.
"It is quite unacceptable in my view that we have 10-year-olds or 12-year-olds in custody, we should bite the bullet, as most of the rest of the world has done," Mr Morgan said.
"Set the age of criminal responsibility at 14 and say any child under that age needs to be looked after by the welfare services, not the criminal justice system."
Writing in The West Australian newspaper today, Mr Morgan, together with Denis Reynolds, blamed the government for the "morally bankrupt" situation.
"A prolonged lack of political and departmental leadership with a disregard for the law and loss of a moral compass" was to blame, the pair wrote.
'Difficult' cohort blamed
They were especially critical of the government's decision to blame "a difficult cohort" of inmates for riots at Banksia Hill and the subsequent decision to transfer some to Casuarina, which Premier Mark McGowan reiterated today.
"Sadly there has been a group that has disrupted it for everyone else ... there's been no alternative but to put them into Unit 18 [at Casuarina]," Mr McGowan said.
But Mr Morgan and Mr Reynolds said there was "no evidence" to support the claims, and the damage the young inmates caused to Banksia Hill was a direct result of the way they had been treated.
"They have always been the most vulnerable children in our community with backgrounds of trauma and disadvantage," they wrote.
"The truth is that their behaviour was the inevitable consequence of their cruel, inhuman and unlawful treatment."
Mr McGowan said 11 young people remained at Unit 18 at Casuarina Prison, and about 85 were currently incarcerated at Banksia Hill.
"That means that Banksia Hill ... is running far more effectively [and] peacefully," he said.
"There's all sorts of education and psychological programs in there, so that those young people who are not being disruptive or dangerous or assaulting staff or causing damage, can get the attention they need."
But Mr Reynolds and Mr Morgan wrote there were "no facilities for any education, psychological support and recreation programs" for many of the young inmates forced to endure long periods of solitary confinement as a result of staff shortages.
They urged the government to "do what is lawfully and morally right".
"The best interests of our community requires vulnerable children to be given a real opportunity for rehabilitation," they wrote.
Inmates are 'third priority'
Later, Corrective Services Minister Bill Johnston rejected the argument that young offenders were lashing out because they were hardly let out of their cells and had little access to daylight, education and support.
He said the inmates were violent and difficult to manage, and their welfare was not the government's top priority.
"The absolute first priority is to keep the community safe," he said.
"The second priority is to keep the staff safe because if we don't keep the staff safe, they won't come to work because they'll either be on workers compensation or they will leave the workplace.
"And then the third element is to keep the the youth offender safe."
Children treated as 'less than human'
Opposition justice spokesman Peter Collier said he agreed with Mr Morgan and Mr Reynolds, and the government was taking a punitive approach to juvenile justice that treated the young inmates as "less than human."
"If we really want to make a difference in the lives of these children, we've got to provide meaningful rehabilitation facilities," Mr Collier said.
"Banksia Hill does not do that."
Speaking to journalists later, Mr Reynolds said he feared children would die at Banksia Hill unless the government took action.
"It's only been a matter of good luck that we haven't had a suicide," he said.
