Report reveals physical abuse of young detainees in NSW
centre
Source: AAP | Published: Tuesday March 14, 2:20 PM
A damning report into the causes of four riots at a NSW juvenile
detention centre last year has revealed a culture of
physical and verbal abuse of detainees by staff.
The report uncovered an almost routine use of physical force and
confinement of problematic detainees that, in at
least one case, resulted in a serious assault on a detainee.
The Investigation Into Kariong Juvenile Justice Centre report, released
in state parliament today, revealed
departmental officers knew the Central Coast centre was suffering from
poor staff morale, limited detainee programs
and inadequate supervision of team leaders, but failed to act.
The report said that in three incidents where force was used at the
centre, the detainees were injured.
But despite the seriousness of the incidents, records of them were
nearly always incomplete, absent or misleading.
Staff were often in fear of reprisal from more senior officers, and some
staff singled out Aboriginal detainees and
used racist language to them.
NSW acting Ombudsman Chris Wheeler recommended Kariong be wound down as
a maximum security facility.
He also recommended that new juvenile detention centre staff in NSW
undergo psychological testing to determine
their suitability for the job and to weed out inappropriate officers.
Mr Wheeler said staff should be rotated from juvenile detention centres
every four to five years to ensure they did not
become burnt out.
'This was a major investigation ... to find out why things got out of
control at Kariong,' he told reporters.
'Our investigation found that Kariong was a severely dysfunctional
centre at the time the riots occurred. ... Morale was
dangerously low.
'The senior management team was burnt out from being at the centre too
long and had become distant from staff,
while the supervision and support of staff was severely deficient.'
He said the daily management of the centre was often left in thehands of
staff with limited skills.
There was also poor staff training in safety and security.
In his investigation into the riots, he said it was remarkable no-one
was killed or seriously injured.
Several detainees tried to hang themselves during the riots last March,
he said.
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