Melbourne Youth Justice Centre: Police negotiating with young rioters holed up in 'inaccessible area'
Updated
Police are continuing to negotiate with more than a dozen rioting inmates holed up in "inaccessible areas" of the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre.
Key points:
- Police continue to try to resolve situation
- Significant number of inmates to be moved to adult prison
- Jenny Mikakos describes inmate behaviour as "disgraceful"
About 40 inmates were involved in a riot at the juvenile jail at Parkville overnight — the second in as many days — damaging property and setting off the centre's fire alarms.
The ABC understands one inmate accessed the roof of one of the centre's units and was able to pull up others.
It is understood they armed themselves with tools from the centre's workshop and helped inmates break out of other areas.
Chief Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said about 40 inmates were involved in the riot and about 20 were still outside their cells.
"About 40 young people … [were] rioting in one of the wings and accessing some of the internal areas of the grounds and some of the workshop areas," he said.
Multiple cars from Victoria Police's Public Order Response Unit and two police vans carrying multiple officers arrived at the centre about 9:00am.
Paramedics and fire crews were also on standby at the facility.
Prisoners to be moved to adult facilities
Minister for Families and Children Jenny Mikakos said a "significant number" of the inmates would be temporarily transferred to an adult prison while the damaged facility was "strengthened".
The Minister said the centre was no longer "fit for purpose" because the infrastructure was "letting us down" and the facility would be redeveloped.
"In response to this particular incident over the weekend, we have had some property damage at the Parkville facility which has meant that we have lost some operational capacity within that facility," she said.
"We are taking the legal steps now to ensure that a number of these offenders will be transferred to an adult correctional facility."
The first prisoners were transferred late this afternoon and were heard pounding on the walls of the white prison van and screaming obscenities as they passed a group of journalists.
No threat to centre's security, Government says
Ms Mikakos said the centre was secure and no staff had been injured.
"The behaviour that has been exhibited is disgraceful, it's absolutely disgraceful and will not be tolerated by the Andrews Government," she said.
"Enough is enough these perpetrators of this damage will face serious consequences."
Ms Mikakos said police were still in the process of bringing the incident to an end.
"I'm confident that Victoria Police will continue to work closely the staff at our youth justice centre precinct to resolve this matter," she said.
The Minister said about 100 new staff would be recruited to resolve a problem with "staffing limitations" and the Youth Parole Board would be told of any assaults on staff as part of their consideration of a bid for parole.
Series of incidents at Parkville, Malmsbury facilities
The incident is the latest in a series of disturbances at youth detention facilities in Victoria this year.
On Saturday night, police officers in riot gear and dog handlers were called to the facility about 9:00pm after reports of a disturbance.
Unconfirmed reports said offenders trashed cells and rioted on the facility's roof.
The situation was brought under control by about 11:00pm, a DHHS spokesman said, and no-one was hurt.
At the higher security Malmsbury juvenile jail last month, two teenagers were accused of ripping benches off walls and threatening staff with makeshift metal weapons.
Topics: law-crime-and-justice, prisons-and-punishment, states-and-territories, state-parliament, government-and-politics, parkville-3052, melbourne-3000, vic, australia
First posted
