Youth detention centres should be shut down: ombudsman
Updated
Victoria's ombudsman has called on the Government to shut down its youth detention facilities, due to unclean, unhygienic and inadequate conditions.
In a scathing report to State Parliament, the ombudsman has found the Youth Justice Precinct at Parkville has mouldy and dirty conditions and significant overcrowding.
The report also aired allegations that some detainees had been placed in isolation rooms and had to go to the toilet in buckets.
The report also airs allegations from whistleblowers, that prison staff had assaulted inmates and had also encouraged detainees to fight each other.
The ombudsman, George Brouwer, says the precinct is in breach of international human rights laws, and should be re-built at another site.
"The dirty, unhygienic and ill-maintained conditions reflect poorly on the management and staff," the report says.
"I consider the structural problems I have identified are beyond simply maintenance and repair. As such the only practical way to address the conditions... is to develop a new facility at another site."
The report found overcrowding is a significant problem and a breach with the Charter of Human Rights.
"This brings into question the capacity of the department to operate youth services," the report says.
A number of witnesses, including staff, allege that some night staff sleep during their shifts or unlock the door to detainees' bedrooms allowing them out into common areas at night.
The ombudsman has recommended that CCTV be installed in all common areas throughout the precinct.
He says the department has accepted all of his recommendations.
Community Services Minister, Lisa Neville, says she removed senior staff from the centre earlier this year, and it is now under new management.
She says the Government is also conducting a review and into the centre and could shut it down in future.
"The options are: do we build a new centre, do we do something on the current site, do we have a different secure unit for some of the older offenders at the centre," she said.
"That is absolutely something that we are looking at."
Topics: prisons-and-punishment, state-parliament, parkville-3052
First posted
