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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Youth crime has become a national issue once again – front page stories in Queensland, the Northern Territory, to Western Australia are all raising the alarm that young people in regional towns are making the streets unsafe.

The WA Premier Mark McGowan said last week, quote: “parents and families need to parent.”... and that he’s annoyed that people lay the blame for the problem on governments.

Today, contributor to The Saturday Paper Jesse Noakes, on the children who get caught up in the criminal justice system and what happens in the places they’re sent to.

It’s Tuesday, February 14.

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RUBY:

So Jesse, you recently went to Kununurra, which is in far northern WA, to speak to some young people, who might be at risk of incarceration. Tell me about what you found.

JESSE:

So on my first night in Kununurra, I went out with the Night Patrol, which is a service that's run by a local NGO and supported by the police.

The aim of that service is to get young people off the streets of Kununurra after dark and to get them home.

And over the course of the night I was out there from about 8 p.m. in the evening until midnight. We probably saw about 70 kids pile into the white minibus that was driving around the streets of the East Kimberley.

Archival tape -- Bus Driver:

“We just dropped that kid home he’s back on the street now”

Archival tape -- Jesse Noakes:

“He was just in the car I recognise the shirt, he was the first one we dropped off hey?”

JESSE:

Those kids, some of whom were as young as eight, explained the reasons that they were still out on the streets. In some cases it's because there's nowhere safe for them to go home to their parents, their grandparents might have issues with alcohol use.

There's a terrible incidence of domestic violence in the East Kimberley as well. So many of the homes these young people are living in are overcrowded, they're unsafe.

The kids repeatedly said they often feel safer out on the street than they do at home.

Archival tape -- Jesse Noakes:

“That’s it? No more kids?”

Archival tape -- Bus Driver:

“That’s it”

JESSE:

The reality on the streets at night is that the kids who are often feeling unsafe, often end up in trouble. There's record rates of stolen cars and of ram raids of shopfronts and businesses in the East Kimberley. Just last week it was reported that a police car had been rammed in Kununurra and two police officers had been injured in that.

Earlier that week there'd been a ram-raid on a local business from young people in a buggy or golf cart. Again, out on the streets of Kununurra in the early hours of the morning.

So the reality is that kids who don't feel safe going home, are staying out on the streets all night getting into trouble and making the rest of the community feel unsafe as well. And the consequence is that the judicial system sometimes feels there's no alternative but to send young people a long way off country, down to Banksia Hill Detention Centre in Perth. But simultaneously, what the kids I spoke to were telling me was that a trip down to Banksia really does nothing to break the cycle either.

RUBY:

Well let’s talk about Banksia Hill detention centre - what are the conditions like there and what actually happens to children who are placed inside that centre?

JESSE:

Banksia Hill is Western Australia's only youth detention centre. It's also the only remand centre in the state. It's in the suburbs of Perth. But so many of these kids are coming from other parts of Western Australia. So you've got your Kija kids, you've got Miriuwung kids, you've got Martu kids coming thousands of kilometres from their families, from their communities, from the only home they know to a detention centre that's been described by the president of the Perth Children's Court and WA’s prison’s custodial supervisor as inhumane, illegal and appalling.

Last year, more than 700 kids were locked up for some period in Banksia Hill Youth Detention Centre. At the start of this year, 75% of those young people were Aboriginal.

Almost 90% of the young people inside Banksia had some form of serious neurodevelopmental disorder. Over a third of the children in there suffered from foetal alcohol syndrome and they're being incarcerated in conditions that often involve rolling lockdowns. Some of these children are being locked up for up to 20 hours behind bars in solitary confinement on a regular basis.

RUBY:

Right. And Jesse, you said that the President of the Children’s court, he said that the conditions in Banksia they’re inhumane but they’re also illegal, so is that the case? Is the WA government doing something illegal here, in the way that the prison is being run?

JESSE:

Yeah so in the middle of last year, the Aboriginal Legal Service brought a case to the Supreme Court of Western Australia. And they essentially allege that keeping young children detained in the cells for 23 hours a day on a regular basis breached their human rights. And a justice of the WA Supreme Court agreed with the Aboriginal Legal Service and did brand the government's actions illegal. Then in December, just before Christmas. Further cases were brought and again, the decision was handed down that the treatment of young people inside Banksia Hill was illegal and that the WA government was breaking the law in continuing to impose these rolling lockdowns.

There is currently a class action on foot in the Federal Court brought by several hundred current and former detainees of Banksia Hill, young people who have spent time in that facility that details a litany of abuses. There was a case recently that was brought to light through this class actions of a 13 year old autistic teenage girl who was detained at Banksia Hill. She was forced to sleep on a mattress that she alleges was covered with excrement and saliva. She reports that she was being treated like a dog, forced to eat meals that were fed to her through a grill and to earn the right to bedding when she was sleeping on a concrete floor in a cell at Banksia hill. There was another case just last week of a 14 year old girl who was brought before the Perth’s Children's Court, who had spent 19 days detained at Banksia Hill with no previous criminal record at all. She had refused a strip search by police in the watch house and had, as a result, been sent to Banksia for almost three weeks. The Children's Court magistrate threw her case out when it was brought before him and declared it ridiculous that she'd been detained there in the first place.

And when you've got not just advocates but Supreme Court justices and magistrates in the Perth Children's Court agreeing that the way they're being treated inside that facility is illegal, I think it takes a bit more from the government than simply to to insist that the kids have committed very violent crimes and essentially deserve the treatment they’re receiving because no one else seems to agree with that perspective.

It’s as simple as the fact that the kids are going stir crazy. They're cooped up. They've got nothing to do. They've got no opportunities, no education, no recreation. Many of these kids are being brought in from various parts of the state, very different communities and upbringings and thrust together in one place. And inevitably there are these outbreaks of rioting and protest from children.

Which culminated last year in an extended riot throughout the day on New Year's Eve, leaving about two dozen kids up on the fences as the sun set on 2022, refusing to come down until they'd seen the fireworks over the Perth City skyline.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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Archival tape -- Newsreader:

“At least 7 youths have gone on a rampage at the Banksia Hill detention centre, smashing windows and a security camera before starting a fire…”

Archival tape -- Banksia Hill Chief:

“They were like" I want to stay and watch the fireworks” but I don’t believe that was the reason. I think it was low impulse control, spontaneous and you know genuine threats”

Archival tape -- Minister Bill Johnston:

“I believe the community strongly believes that the protection of the community comes first, the protection of the staff comes second and then the protection of the detainees comes third… ”

RUBY:

Jesse, we’ve been talking about Banksia Hill detention centre and things there really came to a head on New Years Eve – there was this riot which I think really thrust the issues at the centre into the national headlines and also onto the front pages. So how has the WA government responded as there has been more media focus on what's happening there?

JESSE:

So late last year, when some of the treatment and conditions at the centre was exposed in the media, including on Four Corners and on the front page of The West Australian, the local paper, Premier McGowan made the comment that the children involved were very violent offenders, some of the most violent offenders in the state.

Archival tape -- Mark McGowan:

“The reason they’re in Banksia is because they’ve often committed extremely serious offences, now when they’re in detention there are programs there to assist them. But if the detainees are then going to riot and burn things down, that is on them.”

JESSE:

And he has repeatedly used language and rhetoric that has been described by many advocates as dehumanising.

Archival tape -- Mark McGowan:

“There has to be a consequence, if you have a world without consequence well then you have a lawless world”

JESSE:

The one conversation they're not willing to engage in is about lifting the age of criminal responsibility. Now, advocates across the state in line with campaigns around the country, are arguing that the WA government needs to lift the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14. McGowan has flatly refused to accept that demand.

Archival tape -- Mark McGowan:

“All I’m saying to you all is, and I’m going to keep saying it, because people like me sending these messages to families and communities is important…families and parents need to parent.”

JESSE:

The WA government is still in a position where they are incarcerating children as young as 10.

We've seen people like Greens Senator Dorinda Cox criticising the McGowan Government for their refusal to lift the age of criminal responsibility. There are campaigns from groups like Social Reinvestment WA calling on the Government to do precisely that. But thus far, instead of engaging in a conversation, effectively the government has stonewalled any criticism of its handling of Banksia Hill.

Instead they’ve just doubled down on the harsh rhetoric and doubled down on insisting they’re doing everything they can in spite of the overwhelming evidence the children are unable to handle the conditions they’re facing.

RUBY:

So it sounds like despite increasing pressure on the WA government from across the board, from advocates, from people who actually work within the detention system and from the courts the government is really doubling-down on its position, this kind of tough on crime approach. So can you tell me more about why it is that the WA government is looking at this issue this way? What are the politics of this? What's going on?

JESSE:

I think there's a few dynamics underpinning why the West Australian Government and especially Premier Mark McGowan, has taken such an unrepentant stance in relation to the treatment of children at Banksia Hill and also the root causes of youth offending across WA. Firstly, the simple fact is that McGowan enjoys an overwhelming political super majority across both houses of Parliament.

Labour controls 53 of the 59 Lower House seats in WA Parliament and there is simply no political pressure on him in any meaningful way to adjust his stance, which he's become quite comfortable with. Additionally, I think McGowan has quite accurately identified that the issue of youth offending and providing a more sympathetic conditions for youth offenders is unlikely to be a vote winner in Western Australia. It's still quite a conservative state and a tough on crime, tough on criminals approach from the government is unlikely to alienate many of the voters they're interested in keeping within the fold.

They have announced a $63 million program to upgrade facilities within Banksia Hill and apparently to provide some additional education and recreation opportunities to children detained there. They've also announced a $40 million program. Based in regional Western Australia to address the causes of youth offending and to provide additional supports to communities up there to pre-empt and prevent some of this behaviour before it materialises. but investments on that scale are simply not sufficient to address the scale and the degree of this problem. It's not just an isolated case of one youth detention centre. It's not just one town in regional WA that is facing this issue. It's right across this state, throughout the regions and even within the Perth CBD that the issue of rising youth crime and youth justice responses to it are becoming more and more a feature of the political landscape in Western Australia. And so I think it’s going to take a lot more from the government than just some fairly harsh rhetoric and seeking to sweep the problem under the rug.

RUBY:

Ok, and I think Jesse, listening to you talk about what’s happening, I think what you’ve really done in your reporting is trace this - really grim process by which children end up in prison. And as you say that is something that’s playing out not just in WA but across the country. So if we were to accept - as I think we should - that children don’t belong in prison, but at this point governments are yet to act to raise the age of criminal responsibility — are there other things that could be done now to try and stop this pattern?

JESSE:

Based on the conversations that I've had over the past couple of months and throughout last year, I think the solutions lie in the communities these children come from.

It's no good taking a Kija kid from Halls Creek or a Miriuwung kid from Kununurra and flying them 3000 kms off country down to Perth to lock them up behind bars at Banksia detention centre with all its myriad issues. When there are solutions based in the communities themselves that this government could adopt and could support and could provide proper resourcing for, that would actually address this problem at its source. Banksia Hill, In one sense, it's just the end of the pipeline which starts up on country in these communities where people feel abandoned.
That's what I found when I spent time on the ground up there, if they're serious about preventative measures based on country and in the communities to address these issues at their source, they need to get out there on the ground and actually listen to what the elders and the families and what the kids themselves are saying, because that's where the wisdom is. That's where the healing begins, the families and the elders know what's needed and the government simply needs to respond to their cries for help.

RUBY:

Jesse, thank you so much for your time.

JESSE:

Thanks a lot Ruby. Much appreciated.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

Almost a week after the earthquake struck Türkiye and Syria, the death toll has climbed to above 33,000 people. Another 92,000 people are injured.

Turkish authorities have also issued more than 100 arrest warrants for the builders, engineers, and architects connected to some of the thousands of buildings that collapsed onto residents.

And US fighter jets have shot down the third mysterious flying object in the skies above North America – the latest object, flying at a high altitude, reportedly had an octagonal structure.

Officials do not know what the new objects are, and they do not know whether the objects are connected to the Chinese surveillance balloon that drifted over the United States a fortnight ago, before being shot into the ocean.

President Biden reportedly had the objects shot down out of an abundance of caution.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you tomorrow.

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