Royal Commission: Managers from NT Corrections knew of Don Dale issues but didn't act, inquiry hears
Posted
A group of managers with the NT Department of Corrections knew at least by May that there were serious problems at the youth detention centres, but did nothing to fix the issues, a royal commission has been told.
The Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory today heard from Keith Hamburger at its first hearing in Darwin.
Mr Hamburger penned the report A Safer Northern Territory Through Correctional Interventions, which was given to the NT Government on July 31.
His scathing report, released to the then CLP government just days after Four Corners ran its expose on conditions in NT youth detention centres, gave a damning assessment of the Territory's corrections system and found flaws in measures taken by both Labor and CLP governments.
Mr Hamburger told the royal commission that the situation was so dire in NT youth detention centres that even before his team had finished the review, they alerted NT Commissioner of Correctional Services Mark Payne, so changes could be implemented.
"I said to my team, 'look, we have seen hanging points, we have seen inappropriate staff supervision practices, we have seen all sorts of problems'," Mr Hamburger told the royal commission.
"[I said] 'we can't leave this until the end of the review. We need to raise this concern now because we need to bring it to attention and see if we can get something happening'."
Corrections staff knew of problems at youth detention
In a document lodged with the royal commission, Mr Hamburger also revealed the results of a workshop he held with 31 middle and senior managers at the NT Department of Correctional Services on May 19, including the acting executive director of Correctional Operations, Bill Carroll, and others.
In the workshops the managers were asked to identify risks at the Don Dale and Alice Springs juvenile detention centres.
The group came up with 36 different risks to the children at the centres, including a lack of health services, lack of Indigenous staff, not having facilities that were fit for purpose, needs of girls not being met and an environment of restriction "that reduces confidence of everyone".
The group then came up with 35 different things that could be done immediately to reduce risks at the centres.
'Astonishing' nothing was done to implement measures
But today's hearing was told nothing was done to implement these measures.
"If that was a representation of upper and middle management Mr Hamburger, why was nothing happening?" Commissioner Margaret White asked.
"It does seem fairly astonishing if they are not the people right down at the coal face, but the more senior people, there might have been some initiatives taken to implement these very sound principles."
Mr Hamburger replied that many of the people felt frustrated.
"They knew that these things were happening but they couldn't get a resolution of them," he said.
Grim picture of life at Don Dale
Earlier in his evidence, Mr Hamburger painted at grim picture about life in the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre, saying the impression he had was one of "disrepair and despair".
He said Don Dale was predominantly staffed by men, which he thought was wrong, especially because some of the detainees at the centre were girls.
Mr Hamburger said that at Don Dale there had been a misinterpretation of rules that meant detainees who were sent to isolation cells were there for 24 hours, rather than "up to" 24 hours, which was being accurately enforced at the Alice Springs facility.
Topics: royal-commissions, youth, law-crime-and-justice, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, darwin-0800, alice-springs-0870
