The state Ombudsman has weighed in over Victoria's youth justice crisis, preparing to table yet another critical report about problems in the system.
The move comes as Youth Affairs Minister Jenny Mikakos said on Thursday a new juvenile justice centre would be built with more beds and special features to handle inmates with complex behaviour problems.
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Minister for Youth Affairs Jenny Mikakos has said, Victoria would get a "fit-for-purpose high security" youth justice system with more beds.
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Jenny Mikakos discusses Malmsbury breakout
Minister for Youth Affairs Jenny Mikakos has said, Victoria would get a "fit-for-purpose high security" youth justice system with more beds.
The final two Malmsbury youth detention centre escapees were caught by police in Colac on Thursday afternoon. Fifteen teenagers had escaped on Wednesday after a riot at the facility.
As Premier Daniel Andrews backed his minister amid calls for her sacking, Ms Mikakos also promised further changes would be announced soon.
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One option being considered by the government involves changing the law to allow a specialist anti-riot squad from Corrections Victoria to respond to incidents inside youth justice facilities.
At present, the Children and Young Persons Act prevents Corrections Victoria's Security and Emergency Services Group from directly responding to incidents involving young people.
SESG members are trained to quell prison riots and to extract reluctant prisoners from their cells. They can use dogs, capsicum spray, batons and, if needed, firearms.
But any move to introduce the Corrections Victoria unit to the youth justice system is likely to provoke criticism from human rights advocates.
Victoria's Community and Public Sector Union, which has youth justice workers among its members, has been lobbying the government to change the law to make assaulting youth justice workers a specific offence.
Union secretary Karen Batt supported changes to the Children and Young Persons Act to ensure there was "clear consequences for such violent outbursts".
As the government seeks to regain control of the youth justice system, Fairfax Media has confirmed that a Department of Health and Human Services staff member has alleged to Ombudsman Deborah Glass that internal reports of serious incidents inside youth justice centres have been deliberately played down.
Ms Glass has been told about a violent assault involving two youths allegedly being played down last year to avoid scrutiny.
While it is unclear what Ms Glass' upcoming report will focus on, staff from her office are understood to have visited youth detention facilities in recent weeks, including the Grevillea unit at the adult Barwon Prison near Geelong. A small number of youths are being held at the unit while the Parkville centre is repaired after it was badly damaged during a riot late last year.
Another regulator, Victorian Commissioner for Children Liana Buchanan, is also preparing to table a report in Parliament and is understood to have been frustrated by difficulties in getting access to departmental information relating to the use of lockdowns and isolation within the youth justice system.
While she would not comment directly on the question of access to information, Ms Buchanan said transparency was needed in order to understand what has been going on and to improve the situation.
Fairfax Media can reveal that Ms Mikakos was confidentially briefed about alleged misreporting by youth justice workers shortly after Labor won office in 2014. The effect of the alleged misreporting was to make the youth justice system appear far healthier than it is.
Ms Mikakos was so concerned that she raised the allegations with the director of the state's youth jail facilities, Ian Lanyon, shortly after the 2014 election.
"I was very keen to explore the accuracy of those concerns," the minister told Fairfax Media.
Ms Batt said incident reporting had been a big problem until practices were changed in 2015.
"Previously the data had been recorded on client files and was not centrally recorded, so there was no understanding [of] what had been happening, and so staff concerns, and concerns we were raising on their behalf, were not initially backed up by data," she said.