Urge Malcolm Turnbull to expand detention center inquiry to include youth detention centers nationwide

Abused, hooded and bound in a manner likened to Guantánamo Bay. This comparison is no joke, and the captives are no hardened criminals. They are juveniles, nothing but kids. We must act to stop this terrible mistreatment of our children in the secretive confines of our youth detention centers.

The pictures of a young man tied to a chair, with a hood over his head are burned into my psyche. I ask myself how? How can this happen to boys in Australia? I am shocked and saddened. But being shocked and saddened doesn’t do much for these boys, nor does it bring those bullies to justice. 

Stripped, manhandled to the floor and restrained, hooded and tied to a chair - this after spending two weeks in solitary confinement. Behavioral management, restrictive detention, isolation – these are the more refined phrases used to describe solitary confinement. Don Dale’s little rooms are called the behavioral management unit. It was in this wing we saw footage of Roper, then a 14-year-old boy, getting out of his cell in the unit after his two weeks locked up alone.

These are young boys being treated this way. Young boys who need help, not isolation. Who need treatment, not confinement in chairs with hoods over their heads. We recoiled in revulsion when images like this flashed across our screens as the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay came to light. Now it is happening on our very doorsteps.

The Northern Territory Youth Justice Act says that detainees may be placed in isolation for 24 hours, or a maximum of 72 hours with the consent of the commissioner. Isolation, however, is loosely defined and does not justify how Roper came to be in the behavioral management unit for more than two weeks. 

To justify Ropers prolonged isolation, officials at Don Dale told the children’s commissioner they were placed there under a “management plan” and outside the Youth Justice Act in order to get around the timeframes.
Effectively proving that Don Dale is effectively making up its own rules. And in the absence of the specific center policies no one has any idea what those rules are. In fact we have more information about how Guantánamo Bay detention center permits the use of isolation, and compared with Roper and the other children, there is not much difference.

Malcolm Turnbull announced a royal commission after the national broadcaster aired the footage showing children in detention at the Don Dale facility outside Darwin. We welcome this probe, but Don Dale is not the only youth detention center in Australia. We need to know if there are more centres flouting the rules and doing more harm than good. 

We need to turn our shock into action, our sadness into movement. We must make sure that a comprehensive probe of the matter is completed soon. We want to know that these abuses will stop and cannot happen again. Not only that, we want this probe extended to all our youth detention centers. We will not rest until we know that our youths are safe and protected.

Sign his petition with me and let us urge Mr Turnbull to make this an exhaustive, extensive probe into all our juvenile detention centers across Australia. Our boys need us.