An Aboriginal teenager has died at a detention centre in Western Australia after calling out from a cell prior to his death.
The 17-year-old is the second child to die in custody in the state in less than a year.
He was found unresponsive in his cell at Banksia Hill youth detention centre on Thursday night, having arrived at the centre on Tuesday morning, reportedly intoxicated.
He had been placed in the intensive supervision unit but was considered low risk with regards to his mental health and self-harm risk, authorities told a press conference on Friday.
He was moved to the facility’s general units and had been checked on 10 times that day, before being found unresponsive on the 11th check-up, just before 10pm on Thursday.
Staff entered his cell and performed CPR but he was unable to be revived. They were wearing radios and body-worn cameras.
The commissioner of corrective services, Brad Royce, said he had reviewed the body camera footage and that he was “satisfied” with the way staff reacted.
“I’m satisfied that their actions around what they’re doing and the way they called for support was appropriate.”
Royce said the teenager had called out from his cell prior to his death, but that the cries were “innocuous and nothing” and had “no suggestion of harm”.
“It was low-level stuff, innocuous. I’d rather not go into it, but it had no impact on this,” he said.
The corrective services minister, Paul Papalia, said the teenager had spent time outside his cell, in communal areas, before returning to his cell sometime after 6pm. He said there was no CCTV in his cell because the 17-year-old wasn’t considered to be at high risk of harm.
The Western Australian premier, Roger Cook, admitted that a “failure has occurred” but expressed confidence in the state’s youth detention system.
“We’ll continue to make sure we do everything we can to improve the lives of people, not only those who work at the facility but those who are at the facility,” he said.
“I have more confidence than ever before in terms of the way we are managing our juvenile detention facilities.”
Independent Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe said she was “furious” at the situation and that the state government was refusing to take responsibility.
“These deaths are entirely avoidable, and the WA and federal governments are responsible,” Thorpe said.
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“It shows that this premier, like all governments, refuses to take responsibility for the systems they’ve built that are killing our children. We’re already seeing the victim blaming that we have become so used to.”
Thorpe said federal action was needed to address what she described as a “national crisis”.
The chief executive of the Aboriginal Legal Service of WA, Wayne Nannup, said he was “bereft and angry that another young boy has lost his life”.
“The loss of another young life in youth detention is intolerable,” he said. “This young boy would have been deeply loved by those close to him and should have had his whole life ahead of him. When he was at his most vulnerable, he should’ve been met with a system that wrapped itself around him, kept him safe and offered him support.”
The WA government has faced strong criticism over conditions in Banksia Hill – the state’s only youth detention centre – amid ongoing reports of self-harm, suicide attempts and the destruction of cells.
It also comes after 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd died in youth detention late last year.
The boy was found unresponsive in his cell at the youth detention unit within the Casuarina prison by staff. The incident was suspected to have been an act of self-harm.
An ongoing inquest into Dodd’s death has heard extensive evidence of the challenges facing the youth justice system across the state.
“How many more tragedies and deaths in custody need to happen before we acknowledge that the current arrangements are not working,” said Katie Kiss, Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner.
The Australian Human Rights Commission is seeking an urgent meeting with the WA premier to discuss child justice policy and the operation of the Banksia Hill facility.
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In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. The Indigenous crisis hotline is 13 YARN, 13 92 76. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org
