Warning: this article discusses distressing themes, including suicide.
The ABC have reported that a teenager has taken his own life while in custody at Banksia Hill Detention Centre last night.
In a media conference this morning, WA Premier Roger Cook confirmed that the 17-year-old child was found unresponsive in their cell by staff.
“An internal investigation is now underway, and police are preparing a report for the coroner,” he said.
Premier Cook said that he was confident “in terms of the way we are managing our juvenile detention facilities.”
The teenager had only arrived at the detention centre two days before he died and was out of his cell for most of yesterday afternoon.
Commissioner of Corrective Services Brad Royce said that the teenage boy was checked on 10 times and on the 11th occasion he was found unresponsive.
Mr Royce said staff were wearing radios and body-worn cameras and that he is satisfied with how the situation was handled by staff.
He died eight days later in hospital.
It was reported that before his passing, Mr Dodd made eight threats of self-harm, requested medical help multiple times and interfered with surveillance of his cell.
Calls on the government to intervene in youth detention system
Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe is calling for urgent federal intervention into the child prison system.
“The federal government needs to work with First Peoples, and the health and community sectors, to create strong federal frameworks that hold the states and territories accountable and stop the abuse,” she said.
Senator Thorpe says that governments must move to close children’s prisons, in favour of evidence-based alternatives focused on care and wellbeing.
“Their failure to act over decades has led to this, and will lead to more deaths if serious action isn’t taken. We must stop putting children into these brutal prisons. Shut them down.
“The era of prisons, surveillance and policing of children must end. We must imagine a different future our children, one based in care.
“For decades we’ve been calling out for change, but just like prison guards ignore the calls of children, government’s ignore the calls of grieving mothers and communities to finally take action on deaths in custody,” she said.
Human rights organisation Amnesty International are condemning the Western Australian government and calling for the closure of Banksia Hill youth detention centre.
“How many times, by how many experts, does the WA government need to be warned about the dangers of their youth detention centres?”
“How many more Aboriginal children will die before the WA government closes down these inhumane, dangerous youth prisons?” said Indigenous rights campaigner Kacey Teerman from Amnesty.
Commissioner Hollonds made 24 recommendations, including raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14 across all states and territories, banning solitary confinement and consistently monitoring all child detention facilities.
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Source Agencies
