Aboriginal children stripped, tear-gassed, brutalised in Northern Territory prison

"To prevent self-harm” a child is hooded and strapped to a mechanical restraint chair in Northern Territory youth detention, a method legislated by the Territory’s parliament.

It almost defies belief that in supposedly civilised Australia there is a prison system that locks up 10 year olds and places children as young as thirteen in solitary confinement. "This is barbarism, this is inhumane, this is child abuse," a lawyer told a television reporter on the investigative journalism programme “Four Corners” of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The 51-minute programme can be watched in full here.

 

In the Northern Territory Aboriginal children have been confined to an isolation wing with no access to sunlight or running water. Some were held for weeks on end, deprived of basic necessities. Young offenders have been stripped naked, assaulted and tear-gassed.

 

"They had absolutely nowhere to run...Those children were afraid for their lives," a children's advocate tells the reporter. "Those cells were ghoulish, they were something medieval," observes a lawyer. "We all sort of looked at each other in shock... there were signs of life in there but we didn't know who was in there or what was happening, or how long they'd been there."

 

"What's going on with children in detention here is a deliberate, punitive, cruel policy." Held by a system that seems bent on breaking children instead of reforming them.

 

"If I treated my children like that, the authorities would take my children from me quite properly because I would be behaving cruelly to them," said a lawyer representing a young victim.

 

The confronting investigation sent shockwaves around Australia. “Australia's Shame” aired on Monday 25 July and replayed on the following two days.

 

The shocking images and other details of the treatment of children in correctional facilities prompted a “deeply shocked” conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was very narrowly re-elected on 2 July, to quickly call for a Royal Commission into the treatment of children at the Don Dale Youth Corrections Centre in Darwin, where the footage was collected. A royal commission is the highest-level of public inquiry in Australia.

 

The Northern Territory Chief Minister, Adam Giles, today removed John Elferink as Corrections Minister, taking over the role himself. But Elferink stays as Attorney General, the government’s chief law officer (akin to justice minister), and holds on to the mental health, justice, and family and children’s health portfolios.

 

Addressing reporters in Darwin, Giles blamed the scandal on a “culture of cover-up” within the territory’s juvenile corrections system.

 

Amnesty International Australia called the abuses “a shocking violation of both the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention against Torture”. 

 

“The Australian Government must immediately launch an investigation into the Northern Territory youth detention system, and take action to prevent the abuse of children in youth detention across Australia.”

 

 

 

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Updates

Turnbull has since announced that a royal commission into youth detention abuse will be limited to the Northern Territory, because “a broader inquiry could lose its way”. Despite the calls for the investigation to be wider, he said royal commissions are most effective when their terms of reference are clear and focused. "Royal commissions with sweeping terms of reference that go on for years and years often lose their way," he said, adding that a nation-wide inquiry would take years.  Turnbull expects the inquiry into the abuse at the Don Dale centre in the Northern Territory to start in September, following a directions hearing in August. A report should be due early next year.

 

Spit hoods now banned  |  Moves to ban spit hoods and restraint chairs  |  NT government considers moving children from Don Dale 'immediately'  |  Elferink lies low as pressure mounts  |  Chief Minister Adam Giles defends comments about putting criminals in a hole  |  How much did they know? Minister sacked over juvenile detention 'torture'  |  Disturbing video sent to corrections minister in 2014  |  Giles Under Pressure As 'Torture' Fall Out Tears NT Government Apart  |  End is now nigh for Giles  |  Giles complained of 'soft, flaccid' treatment of NT prisoners in 2010  |  Giles defends record on youth detention  |  Elferink can’t possibly stay  |  Giles praises John Elferink despite scandal  |  'Boys club' in NT Corrections to blame for abuse of juvenile inmates  |  Australia’s Abu Ghraib: The Scourge of Youth Detention, Racism and Torture in the Northern Territory

 

 

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“Watching the programme was harrowing. To see a crying, distressed child seized by his neck, forced to the ground, manhandled, stripped naked by three grown men and left naked in a cell is just sickening,” said Julian Cleary, Indigenous Rights’ Campaigner at Amnesty International Australia. “The footage of guards laughing at a child being tear-gassed and in distress defies belief."

 

“Amnesty International has repeatedly raised concerns of abuse of children being held in youth detention centres in the Northern Territory. As this program shows, these are not isolated incidents. The NT Government has failed to deal with systemic issues with the treatment of children in its youth detention system,” Cleary said.

 

Prominent Sydney-based criminal lawyers, O'Brien Solicitors, have started a petition for a royal commission which in just a few hours had attracted 19,000 signatures. They’ll send it to the federal government, Turnbull personally, Labor Opposition leader Bill Shorten and The Greens leader, Richard Di Natale.

 

The lawyers write: “According to the programme, this abuse is perpetuated at every level of the system: the officers employed to care for these children instead bully and brutalise them, and the highest levels of the NT government have apparently obfuscated the extent and nature of what is taking place. Only a Royal Commission will be able to uncover the depth of this maltreatment.

 

“Ninety-five percent of NT detainees are Indigenous. The Four Corners program shows that our most vulnerable are being disproportionately incarcerated and also irreversibly physically and psychologically abused.”

 

Human Rights Commissioner, Professor Gillian Triggs has also called for an independent inquiry, describing video of youths being abused as "extremely distressing".

 

"If one of us were to have been found to have treated our children in this way we would probably be charged with a criminal offence and the children would be taken away from us. It's an extremely distressing piece of footage to look at and I have visited many detention centres, sadly.

 

"I have never seen conditions of that kind and I have never seen people treated in that way."

 

Triggs said a formal inquiry would determine whether charges should be laid against people involved, but she said it appeared the guards were "ill-trained or not trained at all".

 

Joshua Creamer, one of only about a dozen indigenous barristers in Australia, has defended a number of indigenous children in criminal matters.

 

He writes: “As juvenile detention centres move to recruit more and more officers with military and police backgrounds, who are combat trained and are often desensitised to violence, coupled with less and less focus on pastoral care and cultural values – many children are quite literally living in hell.

 

“In the last twelve months I have heard reports of horrific levels of violence committed against our young people in detention, resulting in broken limbs, psychological abuse and many other serious injuries. The question I always ask myself is why? Especially when we see examples like in the Netherlands where the system is targeted at rehabilitation and social integration, a system so successful the government is closing prisons through lack of use.

 

“The end result is, we have a system that is failing our kids. It is Indigenous children who represent about 80 per-cent of children in custody, who are affected the most.”

 

A coalition of Northern Territory lawyers, academics, youth service providers and charities will push for sweeping reform to the Territory’s law and order system, in the hope of undoing many so-called “tough on crime” initiatives.

 

A six-point election wishlist from the Make Justice Work organisation calls for the repeal of mandatory sentencing, a comprehensive alcohol plan, a reduction in the number of young people being locked up, more community-based justice programs and an Aboriginal Justice Agreement.

 

Criminal Lawyers Association NT president Russell Goldflam said repealing mandatory sentencing was “among the least controversial” reforms among members of his association, which represents both prosecutors and defence lawyers and which is among 24 organisations backing the campaign.

 

Mandatory jail sentences for relatively minor crimes have been introduced by both the government and Opposition, despite most studies questioning their effect in reducing crime.

 

Renowned lawyer Felicity Gerry said the NT’s justice system had become “brutal”, particularly in the area of youth detention.

 

She said politicians from both major parties had become attracted into “easy to sell” but ineffective law and order policies. “The lawyers are right, you have got to understand that we have the expertise in this area,” Ms Gerry said.

 

She said the Territory’s growing prison population was evidence that longstanding approaches had failed, and a greater focus on rehabilitation was needed.

 

Jesuit Social Services Central Australia manager John Adams said things had become worse over the past four years, as youth programmes were cut, downsized and in some cases reinstated.

 

“It’s hard to build a relationship with an at-risk child when programs are cut and then re-funded later on,” he said.

Zeige Kommentare: ausgeklappt | moderiert

thank you for this news,

it is unbelievable,

kids in prison,

kids tortured like in Abu-Ghuraib or Guantanamo

 

never think this will be possible in australia, never

...far and wide.

 

Behind Australia's smiling face is the ghastly face of racism from the highest levels down.

 

Check out http://groups.google.com/group/wgar-news.

 

Don't hold your breath expecting the planned royal commission to deliver improvements. 25 years after a Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody hardly any of its recommendations have been implemented. There have been 410 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander custodial deaths since 1992 when the final report was tabled. Most could have been prevented if all the recommendations had been implemented. Despite the calls for the investigation to cover all of Australia, Prime Minister Turnbull has already said it will be limited to the Northern Territory - see update in my report.

Aboriginal organisations call for NT government to be dissolved and demand input into Royal Commission

 

26 July 2016 - A coalition of Northern Territory Aboriginal organisations has called for the federal Parliament to dissolve the NT government. “Any government that enacts policies designed to harm children and enables a culture of brutalisation and cover-ups, surrenders its right to govern,” said spokesperson John Paterson.

 

 

A royal commission? Not good enough Turnbull

 

26 July 2016 - "A Royal Commission? What a joke! You have all the evidence you need; it shocked a whole nation. Predominantly First Nations children are being brutalised by a system you let continue in your pretence of ignorance. The evidence is there. Sack everyone in Corrective Services in the Northern Territory. Those who did not actually do anything would have known of these practices and allowed it to happen. Sack the NT government and while you are at it, sweep the federal parliament of the rubbish currently holding seats of power who sat by and watched while our kids were being tortured." - Ken Canning, Green Left Weekly.

 

 

Territory government shouldn't be part of royal commission, former judge says

 

26 July 2016 - The NT government should not be allowed to play any part in the royal commission into the mistreatment of young offenders at Territory juvenile detention facilities, former chief justice of the Family Court of Australia, Alastair Nicholson, says.

 

 

"Government knew for years about Aboriginal child abuse in custody"

 

26 July 2016 - The former NT Children's Commissioner, Dr. Howard Bath says a succession of governments have known about the abuse of Aboriginal children in custody such as Darwin's Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre and should have acted long ago.  Interview on Alice springs Aboriginal radio, CAAMA.

  

 

“The most shocking part is that anyone is actually shocked”

 

26 July 2016 - "The revelations must shock Australians into action. The most shocking thing about the Four Corners expose is that anyone is actually shocked. What, exactly, did we think would happen? And why have we been ignoring stories like these for years?" - Chris Graham, Aboriginal Affairs, New Matilda.

 

 

‘Piccaninnies’ and other expendables: what we’ve always done to black kids in Australia

 

“The Royal Commission will also have to come to grips with the long shadow of settler-colonialism’s overwhelming indifference to Indigenous children’s suffering to fully grasp the visceral ‘powder keg’ moment that seared our eyes and turned our stomachs last night. For when Aboriginal children are abused, tortured, incarcerated and ‘pulverized’ (as one Don Dale officer gloated) it serves a larger purpose, that of disinheritance. Institutional violence against Aboriginal children has historically found a number of forms of expression, from enforced labour, to sexual concubinage, to state protection boards’ programmes of removal from families. Every child removed from family and country, either for ‘protection’ or incarceration was effectively made a dispossessed inheritor.” – Chris Graham.

 

Children’s Commissioner called for reform in 2015

26 July 2016 - "In October 2015, the Northern Territory Children’s Commissioner Colleen Gwynne spoke to National Indigenous Television about her recommendations for a reform of Darwin’s youth detention centres after she presented a report into the tear-gassing of the six boys in 2014." - NITV News.

 

 

Petition to Chief Minister Adam Giles to end the abuse of young people in NT detention

 

"We call on the Northern Territory government to:

1. Immediately close down the Don Dale Correctional Facility

2. Undertake a full, independent and public inquiry on the treatment of young people in the youth justice system

3. Remove the Hon. John Elferink MLA from his position in the Cabinet especially from his portfolios as Minister for Corrections and Minister for Children and Families."

 

 

The NT has known about mistreatment of juveniles for years, so why has nothing happened?

 

26 July 2016 - "ABC reporter Kate Wild has been covering the treatment of children in the NT juvenile justice system for years, from the gassing of children to the controversial use of restraint chairs. She explains why it has taken so long for politicians to take action."

 

 

Royal Commission welcome but a broader inquiry is needed

 

25 July 2016 - "The National Family Violence Prevention Legal Service Forum welcomes the Prime Minister Turnbull’s Royal Commission into the abuse of children in detention in the Northern Territory but has called for a broader inquiry into the youth justice system. The National FVPLS Forum believes the Royal Commission is an initial first step for a broader investigation across all Australian jurisdictions into the treatment of children in juvenile detention and the underlying factors driving engagement with the justice system. It is imperative a broader inquiry examines the structural disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Particular consideration should be given to interrelation between family violence, child removal and incarceration. Governments of Australia have to shift from a punitive to a therapeutic approach within the youth justice system. The National FVPLS Forum is also calling on the federal government to immediately ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) to ensure independent monitoring of all places of detention including juvenile detention facilities."

 

 

"It needs to be a very broad ranging Royal Commission"

 

"Solicitor Jared Sharpe, of the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, chats on Radio 720ABCPerth about the day he discovered the young boys kept in isolation.

 

 

Call to reduce imprisoned young offenders

 

26 July 2016 - "Save the Children: locking up Indigenous young offenders wastes $240 million annually, ruins young lives. Save the Children has welcomed Prime Minister Turnbull’s announcement of a Royal Commission but is urging him to expand the inquiry to look at the system Australia-wide, rather than focus on the Northern Territory."

 

  

Imprisoned handsThe cruel and unjust treatment of children at Don Dale is unlikely to be an isolated incident, say the Australian Greens. “The horrific mistreatment exposed on Four Corners took place in the context of increasing child detention rates in the Northern Territory where Aboriginal children are more likely to be arrested, detained, charged and sentenced than non-Aboriginal children. And, already, accounts of abuse and violence in youth facilities around the country are emerging.”

The Greens demand that the coming inquiry investigate the incarceration and abuse of children wherever they are.

They call on Turnbull to:

  • Ensure the Royal Commission is nationwide, and to investigate the incarceration and abuse of children in all detention facilities – starting with an investigation into the treatment of children in Don Dale and the Northern Territory, and then extending to the rest of the country.

  •  

  • Commit to implement the Royal Commission’s recommendations in full. We must not see a repeat of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, whose recommendations have not been implemented even after 25 years.

  • Implement the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, including the key directive to keep people out of jail wherever possible. That means investing in youth diversionary programs and justice reinvestment so boys like those in Don Dale are kept out of detention.
  • Take urgent action to ensure that the children who are currently locked up are safe. We back Amnesty’s calls for independent monitoring of youth detention facilities.
  • Extend the Royal Commission to children locked up in offshore immigration detention facilities.

The Royal Commission must investigate the violence and cruelty inflicted on those boys at Don Dale, but we must also look at why so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are being locked up in the first place.

Locking children up should only ever be an option of absolute last resort.

German weekly magazine stern: (750,810 copies weekly in 2014). Australian torture victim writes letter of thanks from jail.

German quality weekly Die Zeit: (estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, the most widely read German weekly newspaper.) Adolescents severely mistreated in Australian prison. Images reminiscent of Abu Ghraib.

One of the biggest German news magazines, Der Spiegel: Abuse in youth jail: „I saw the horror with my own eyes.”

Pakistani 24-hour Pakistani current affairs television channel Dunya News:  Australia probes 'shocking' youth detention abuse.

American TV CNN:  Children stripped, assaulted and tear-gassed.

NPR Radio in Berlin: Disturbing images of juvenile prisoners being abused in Australia.

Turkish news agency Anadolu: Guantanamo Bay-style abuse.

 

 

Swiss

 

Neue Zürcher Zeitung (leading daily newspaper)

 

 

Dutch

  

Metro (free newspaper spread in train and bus stations, so it reaches a large audience)NRC Handelsblad (business daily newspaper))

Algemeen Dagblad (leading daily newspaper)

RTL Nieuws (online news site)

Trouw (Amsterdam daily printed newspaper of Christian commitment)

de Volkskrant (daily morning newspaper with a nationwide circulation of approximately 250,000) 

NOS (public television) 

 

 

Danish

 

Ekstra Bladet (tabloid newspaper focusing on sensationalist stories, whose web site is consistently ranked as one of the most visited in Denmark)

Jyllands-Posten (high reputation for unbiased news and forthright opinions, one of Denmark's most widely read newspapers, read by more than 355,000 people on weekdays and 483,000 on Sundays, the only truly national readership of any Danish paper)

SN (online news site)

 

 

German

 

Tagesschau (the nationally viewed main TV newscast)

Die Welt (conservative-leaning daily newspaper)

N24 (TV news channel

Morgenpost (tabloid daily in Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city)

N-TV (TV news channel)

 

Austrian

 

ORF (public TV channel)

Der Standard (left liberal daily newspaper, circulation‎ ‎86,000)

Belgian

 

VTM (the main commercial television station in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking north of Belgium, part of a network of channels which includes radio stations)

De Morgen (Brussels-based Flemish newspaper, circulation 53,860)

Het Belang van Limburg (Flemish tabloid regional newspaper)

Gazet van Antwerpen (Flemish daily newspaper)

De Standaard (Flemish daily newspaper)

 

Swiss

 

Neue Zürcher Zeitung (leading daily newspaper)

 

 

Dutch

  

Metro (free newspaper spread in train and bus stations, so it reaches a large audience)

NRC Handelsblad (business daily newspaper))

Algemeen Dagblad (leading daily newspaper)

RTL Nieuws (online news site)

Trouw (Amsterdam daily printed newspaper of Christian commitment)

de Volkskrant (daily morning newspaper with a nationwide circulation of approximately 250,000) 

NOS (public television) 

 

 

Danish

 

Ekstra Bladet (tabloid newspaper focusing on sensationalist stories, whose web site is consistently ranked as one of the most visited in Denmark)

Jyllands-Posten (high reputation for unbiased news and forthright opinions, one of Denmark's most widely read newspapers, read by more than 355,000 people on weekdays and 483,000 on Sundays, the only truly national readership of any Danish paper)

SN (online news site)

 

 

German

 

Tagesschau (the nationally viewed main TV newscast)

Die Welt (conservative-leaning daily newspaper)

N24 (TV news channel

Morgenpost (tabloid daily in Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city)

N-TV (TV news channel)

 

Austrian

 

ORF (public TV channel)

Der Standard (left liberal daily newspaper, circulation‎ ‎86,000)

Belgian

 

VTM (the main commercial television station in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking north of Belgium, part of a network of channels which includes radio stations)

De Morgen (Brussels-based Flemish newspaper, circulation 53,860)

Het Belang van Limburg (Flemish tabloid regional newspaper)

Gazet van Antwerpen (Flemish daily newspaper)

De Standaard (Flemish daily newspaper)