That Appears to be the Case

This piece was published in Westerly Magazine in 2019.

At 9.50 am in the morning, the heat was enough to make the lawyers take off their suit jackets to walk the short distance from the car park to the Alice Springs Convention Centre. It was the 13th of March 2017. Merit McDonald and a small group of protestors from Shut Youth Prisons held up their placards as the cameras rolled. Dylan Voller was one of them. People started arriving and entered the building, thankful for the air conditioning. Indigenous elders, parents and grandparents, children, relatives, interested members of the public, senior and junior counsel, representatives of Indigenous organisations and those giving evidence had come together for the Royal Commission into the Detention and Protection of Children in the Northern Territory.

I took a seat next to an Aboriginal woman. We introduced ourselves. Her name was Christine Palmer, an Arrente Kaytetye elder. Out of our mutual outrage and sadness over what we heard at the Commission, Christine and I bonded in that week, sitting next to each other, scribbling notes, giving each other eye rolls and grunts of disbelief at some of the evidence. We drank endless cups of coffee and tea, ate biscuits and swapped stories. Christine was giving evidence to the Commission. I was there as a member of the public and as a writer who has an interest in Indigenous issues. Christine has spent her life working to improve conditions for her people. Her qualifications include narrative therapist, trauma and grief counsellor, family support worker, Stolen Generations counsellor and crisis support worker, just to name a few. She has sat on the Northern Territory Women’s Advisory Council and the Alice Springs Child Protection Team. She moves seamlessly between secret women’s business and social media.

On that first morning, the image of Dylan Voller, strapped down into a chair, handcuffed and with a spit hood over his face, was not far from the surface of everyone’s thoughts. It was the reason the Royal Commission was convened. Also, not far from everyone’s thoughts were questions: How could this happen? How could those entrusted with such a high degree of duty of care for such vulnerable children allow this to take place? After listening to a week of evidence, it was not difficult to see why. In the period from 2006 onward, there was a systemic failure on all levels of care and protection of children, ninety-five percent of whom are Indigenous, in detention in the Northern Territory (White and Gooda 6). From the Corrections Minister down, the inquest proves the system was flawed.

Early in the proceedings, the Commission heard from former and current detainees whose experiences can only be described as anything but rehabilitative. Whether incarcerated at the Don Dale Centre, Aranda House, or the Alice Springs Youth Detention Centre (ASYDC), the evidence is testament to a dark era in the Territory’s youth justice system. Detainees were treated with violence, racism, and the arbitrary application of punishment. They were strip-searched and thrown into isolation in unhygienic conditions. The Commission heard about detainees being kicked, slapped, held by the neck, verbally and racially abused, sexually harassed and thrown into isolation for up to eighty hours, clearly breaching the United Nations rules on solitary confinement and the Territory’s own Youth Justice Act. In November 2012, the children at the Alice Springs Youth Detention Centre had no toothpaste for two weeks and no deodorant for five months. Overcrowding saw seven children sleeping in a room for four, some on mattresses on the floor. There were times when the classroom was used as a bedroom and reverted to a learning area the next morning. One current detainee reported his room at the ASYDC contained bugs and a dead mouse, stuck to his mattress. A former detainee reported being called a ‘dumb black kid’ and a ‘cunt.’ (Turner, Transcript 935, 942) Another reported two weeks of microwaved meals with no fresh food at all. There are not enough toilets and no access to water in the rooms.

At Aranda House, the children never saw sunlight. Windows were covered and, in the yard, a shade cloth covered the whole of the area, even in winter. The sally port [1] was not secured properly so that when children were moved between Aranda House, used mostly as a remand centre, and the ASYDC, they were handcuffed. It took three years to procure a purpose-built vehicle to transport the children safely. If in isolation, the detainees had no access to education at all. Complaints to official visitors included not enough food and not enough blankets. Cold and hungry, traumatised, and abused, disconnected from family and country, it is not surprising that conditions escalated to the point where there were riots.

Christine sat, shaking her head.

‘It’s all so preventable,’ she said, during a break. ‘A visit from an elder has been shown to calm the kids down. Such simple things can make a change. They need to engage with us, the people who know.’

The Don Dale Centre could accommodate thirty-eight, but in 2010 it accommodated forty-three. Cabinet submissions called for separate girls’ accommodation to be built at Don Dale. This was rejected despite reports from official visitors that they had serious concerns about keeping males and females together (GF McCarthy, Transcript 1347). In 2011, the then Commissioner of Corrections described the Don Dale facility as one that ‘needs to be bulldozed.’ (GF McCarthy, Transcript 1337) In 2010, an expert panel recommended the building of a new seventy-five-bed facility to address the problems of rising numbers of youth in detention in the Territory. That recommendation was ignored.

Until recently, there was no onsite medical or psychological assistance at these centres. Hearing problems in Indigenous young people run at seven percent in the 0-14 age range (Australian Bureau of Statistics), affecting their ability to learn and participate in programs. Three weeks ago, hearing testing began on all new detainees. Many children have mental health problems and yet had no access to a mental health professional. Lack of information and communication meant that a child could be transferred hundreds of kilometres away without parents, relatives, lawyers, and external support agencies being informed. There was never any system in place to notify anybody, causing great stress on families trying to find out information. 

Christine knows of families to whom this has happened: ‘There was no communication with the families. Their children were moved without notification. Family would turn up to visit to be told their child had been moved to Darwin, 1496 kilometres away. Or they would phone to speak to their child and be told the same thing. Parents didn’t have the money, or they couldn’t get time off to travel to Darwin or both. To be separated from their child is incomprehensible. The only contact was by phone, but it still didn’t lessen the anxiety that there was over a thousand kilometres between them and their children.’

It was obvious that some of the personnel employed at the youth detention centres in Alice Springs and at Darwin were completely unsuitable for working with children. Woefully inadequate training meant that the youth justice workers knew how to put a detainee into a cell, extract them from a cell and administer first aid. This training, called PART, Predict, Assess and Respond to Challenging/Aggressive Behaviour Training, was completed after five days. It covered the use of handcuffs and various restraint techniques. There was no training in conflict resolution, de-escalation techniques, drug and alcohol issues including withdrawal, trauma and grief issues, cognitive behaviour, suicide ideation and no training regarding recognising the signs of a high-risk troubled young person. Christine has worked with children who often came into the remand centre straight from court and were highly traumatised. One former manager employed his son and then employed his son’s friends, all men with training in martial arts (McClee, Transcript 1147). None of them received training in anything other than restraint techniques. Staff shortages meant children were in lockdown for extended periods.

In an audit of the ASYDC, the data collected showed that all relevant documents that detention centres were mandated to keep on the premises were missing. The Care and Protection Act? Not there. Clarification manual? None. The Youth Justice Act? No trace. Policies and Procedures Manual? Same thing. When asked how the staff were to access information should they need it, the Officer in Charge of the Alice Springs centre at the time, Mr Derek Tasker, replied, ‘It’s on the Intranet.’ (Tasker, Transcript 1096) The former acting general manager of Don Dale, John Fattore, admitted to it being nine days before he saw the footage of Dylan Voller strapped in the chair. A worker who assaulted Mr Voller was referred to the Professional Standards Unit. He never showed up. That investigation was not pursued, and the worker was given another contract at Don Dale.

‘Only to allegedly assault another child some six-months later⸺correct?’ asked counsel.

‘It appears to be the case. Yes.’

A ripple went through the public gallery. People shook their heads.

Professor John Rynn, a psychologist with many years’ experience working with Indigenous youth, made the distinction to the Commission between cultural awareness and cultural competence in regard to training of staff. Anybody can be made aware. It doesn’t necessarily follow that being aware also means engaging meaningfully in Indigenous culture and finding ways to interact with and to rehabilitate troubled youth. He spoke about the need to procure as much cultural information as possible when a detainee first arrives; skin name, community, language are all factors that will be significant. Professor Rynn spoke about the long-term damage of placing detainees in isolation and the use of spit hoods, leading to sensory deprivation, affecting the pre-frontal cortex in the teenage brain.

Children in detention in the Northern Territory come from all over the Territory, from urban settings to remote communities, where sometimes English is their second or third language. Detainees who spoke little English were reliant on other detainees who spoke the same Aboriginal languages to interpret for them. When cross-examined, the manager of the Alice Springs Youth Detention Centre, was asked how he knew that the detainees who didn’t speak English had understood what had been translated to them by other detainees. They looked happy, was his answer to the Commission. One can only imagine what was lost in that translation.

A booklet given out to new detainees at the ASYDC, printed in Darwin, was given to each detainee on arrival. It contained information for the children (if they could read) regarding how staff dealt with the detainees. It stated, ‘Different officers have different approaches, and as a detainee, you will need to learn the different ways that officers deal with situations.’ The looks on the faces of those in the public gallery, as they read the paragraph on the big screen, said it all. No consistency, no standard, each worker a law unto themselves. No surprises if the detainees were hypervigilant, stressed, reacted on impulse or were just as unpredictable as the workers themselves. 

The former Minister of Correction’s evidence was what was to be expected. Political obfuscation. Gerry McCarthy had all the terminology we expect to hear from a member of parliament: delivering outcomes, budgetary constraints, cabinet briefings, community models, competing priorities, operational procedures and the usual excuse, ‘I inherited the problem.’ He spoke of having to prioritise the government’s limited capital investment. The overwhelming message, however, was clear. Children in detention in the Northern Territory are not worth investing in. They have been a low priority.

‘There’s nothing to do here and nowhere for the kids to go,’ a young Aboriginal girl told me.

When Adam Giles was Chief Minister of Northern Territory, he closed the youth centre in Alice Springs, citing Alice Springs had been ‘cleaned up.’ (GF McCarthy, Transcript 1346) Currently, there is no youth centre in Alice Springs, and yet, the government had no trouble investing in motorsports in central Australia citing the benefits of tourism to the region. Incredulously, the Minister did not see the footage of Dylan Voller and the abuses at Don Dale at the time. He saw it when the rest of Australia saw it, the night the ABC Four Corners programme aired Australia’s Shame, years later. 

To balance despondency with hope, the Commission heard from people who are passionate and committed to better outcomes for the children in detention in the Northern Territory; teachers, external workers, doctors and ordinary citizens who are trying to bring about change. These people, despite working in very tough conditions, demonstrated compassion and flexibility to the children and were determined to make a difference in their lives. When Christine gave her evidence, the Commissioners were clearly impressed. One of the Commissioners asked her what she would do to fix some of the problems.

‘I’d handpick my team,’ Christine says.

Later, she told me that besides the teachers, the doctors, the professor and a few others, her team wouldn’t include anyone she’d seen working for the system. They’ve got unhealthy attitudes, she told me. Christine is full of ideas. She never stops. And she never stops educating herself and others.

Christine and I have continued our friendship and are now writing a book together about the early days of activism in Alice Springs. She taught me the word ‘malpa’ which is not easily translatable but means something akin to ‘person or friend that guides you.’ Christine has furthered my knowledge of Indigenous culture. She has guided me in understanding.

When I was editing the interviews that Christine has done for the book, I was struck by how many people she interviewed say they came up to work and ‘fell in love with Alice Springs’ and never left. I began to understand why. The breeze coming over Alice in the evenings was unlike any I’d experienced. The desert, the landscape, the artwork, its role in film and literature, the history of activism and the people make it unique.

The Commission wound down on Friday afternoon. Christine and I said goodbye and made plans to catch up soon. I knew we’d be friends for the rest of our lives. Outside the convention centre, two elders held a small smoking ceremony. They asked me to walk up to the smoke and waft it into my face. This is healing, one of the elders told me. I hoped it was a metaphor for the final outcomes of the Royal Commission. I hoped that the system would be seen for what it was; outdated, broken, reeking of a colonial past where black kids didn’t rate. Funding needs to be increased, education made a priority for detainees, staff recruitment practices must change, training overhauled, and cultural competency must be at the forefront of decision making. People like Christine, with a wealth of experience, qualifications, and a vision for her people, need to be listened to. Otherwise, nothing will change. And that appears to be the case.       

Note

[1] A sally port is a space between the entrance and another gate into the detention centre. It prevents escapes.

Works Cited

White, Margaret and Mick Gooda, Interim Report Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Youth in the Northern Territory, Commonwealth of Australia, 2017

Transcript of Evidence, Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Youth in the Northern Territory, Commonwealth of Australia, 2017

McCarthy, Transcript of Evidence, Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Youth in the Northern Territory, Commonwealth of Australia, 2017

Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey: First Results, Australia 2012-13