Speaker 1: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 1: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 2: It was absolute shambles, to tell you the truth, just
Speaker 2: absolutely really coming.
Speaker 1: Blood on his clothing the day after the alleged a
Speaker 1: top on a shallow mud bank and it fits through
Speaker 1: a river.
Speaker 2: Basically, I think most of the people are used to
Speaker 2: me are good people.
Speaker 1: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 1: is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 2: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled back the
Speaker 2: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 2: our justice system and ask who are the victims.
Speaker 1: I'm Amy Maguire and I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate
Speaker 1: for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. And a warning, this
Speaker 1: series contains the names of deceased peoples and has distressing
Speaker 1: content that might upset some listeners.
Speaker 2: Welcome to a special episode of Curtain the podcast. On Friday,
Speaker 2: the Royal Commision into the Protection and Detention of Children
Speaker 2: in the Northern Territory handed down its findings. As most
Speaker 2: of you would remember, this was initiated after ABC's Four
Speaker 2: Corners showed much of the abuse that was going on
Speaker 2: in Darwin's don Dale Use Detention Center. Probably most memorable
Speaker 2: for people listening who saw that four Corners and the
Speaker 2: following news reports was the Atanamo Bay style shackling and
Speaker 2: hooding of Dylan Vola and also the abuse captured on
Speaker 2: CCTV that showed the guards mistreating young, predominantly Aboriginal children,
Speaker 2: and it was vile. Abuse these children were being subjected
Speaker 2: to included beatings, being stripped naked, being tear gassed obviously,
Speaker 2: the hooding and the shack clean the denial of food, water, medication,
Speaker 2: the constant harassment. It included sexual assault. Sexual abuse included
Speaker 2: the filming of both boys and girls while they were
Speaker 2: in showers. I mean, we're talking about criminal acts. And
Speaker 2: what's interesting this week is with the recommendations finally being
Speaker 2: handed down of this Royal Commission, is that the vast
Speaker 2: preponderance of human rights organizations were quick to welcome the
Speaker 2: findings of the Royal Commission and urged that these recommendations
Speaker 2: be implemented immediately as a way of ensuring that these
Speaker 2: abuses don't occur again. What you'll hear from me in
Speaker 2: this podcast is a rejection of what virtually every human
Speaker 2: rights organization in Australia has called for, and what they're
Speaker 2: calling for is the implementation of the recommendations. And I'll
Speaker 2: read you those key recommendations first before I go into
Speaker 2: detail why these recommendations will not change a thing. Firstly,
Speaker 2: the commission recommended that the age of criminal responsibility be
Speaker 2: raised from ten to the age of twelve. It also
Speaker 2: recommended that only allowing children aged fourteen to be detained
Speaker 2: for serious crimes. It spoke about establishing a network of
Speaker 2: family support centers to provide place based services to families
Speaker 2: across the Northern Territory, a shift in youth justice to
Speaker 2: increase diversion or therapeutic approaches, developing a new model of
Speaker 2: bail and secure detention accommodation. And it called for increasing
Speaker 2: engagement with an involvement of Aboriginal organizations in child protection,
Speaker 2: youth justice and detention. Now, on the surface, what you're
Speaker 2: probably thinking is these all sound like good recommendations, and
Speaker 2: I will briefly detail in a moment why I believe
Speaker 2: they're not and the evidence for this. But what I
Speaker 2: first want to say is about some of the things
Speaker 2: we know about juvenile detension in Australia. The abuses that
Speaker 2: we've seen are not confined solely to the Northern Territory.
Speaker 2: This just happens to be somewhere where these abuses were
Speaker 2: caught on CCTV and the whistle was blown and it
Speaker 2: was exposed in one forty minute episode of Four Corners.
Speaker 2: To think you can expose the entirety of the problem
Speaker 2: of youth justice in Australia in just forty minutes exposing
Speaker 2: just one news detention center is naive at best, and
Speaker 2: unfortunately the reaction of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to call
Speaker 2: a Royal commission the following day was to simply look
Speaker 2: at the Northern Territory. It should have been nationwide. Do
Speaker 2: we really believe these exact same problems don't exist in Queensland, Wa,
Speaker 2: South Australia, Victoria, the Northern Territory, all over Australia. In fact,
Speaker 2: right now the Victorian government is completing one of the
Speaker 2: largest juvenile detention facilities in the country and it looks
Speaker 2: exactly what you would expect a maximum security prison for
Speaker 2: adults to look like. This is totally unacceptable and it
Speaker 2: goes to the initial shortfalling of the Northern Territory. Royal
Speaker 2: Commission in only focusing on one territory and not the
Speaker 2: entire country. Now, what we also know is that in
Speaker 2: Australia juvenile detention has been failing young people for decades
Speaker 2: and decades. We've seen and heard of horror stories of
Speaker 2: facilities around the country being closed over the years because
Speaker 2: of the abuse that has gone on in these facilities.
Speaker 2: From New South Wales to Western Australia. Children as young
Speaker 2: as ten have been beaten and abused, sexually assaulted and tormented,
Speaker 2: bullied and bashed, denied medication, withheld visits from their family,
Speaker 2: denied access to education, denied access to medication they've been
Speaker 2: prescribed by their doctors psychological services. So once again this
Speaker 2: is not just the Northern territory. And again for human
Speaker 2: rights organizations to be calling for the implementations of these
Speaker 2: recommendations to be put in immediately and that this would
Speaker 2: fix the problem, and that we must be vigilant to
Speaker 2: implement these recommendations is to suggest that somehow a utopia
Speaker 2: can be achieved and somehow these recommendations are worth the
Speaker 2: paper they're written not. They're simply not, and they're not
Speaker 2: because they don't address the generational issue. The juvenile the
Speaker 2: tension has caused. We know about the recidivism rates that
Speaker 2: lead to the young people who go through this system
Speaker 2: ending up in adult prisons. But what's much much worse
Speaker 2: is that we know the trauma and abuse rates that
Speaker 2: the children who end up in juvenile dettension have faced
Speaker 2: before they ever end up in court in the first place.
Speaker 2: Should we be detaining children who have been victims of abuse?
Speaker 2: They may have committed small crimes. The most serious of
Speaker 2: the crimes alleged against any of the individuals shown in
Speaker 2: this report was serious assault. Now, no one is ever
Speaker 2: condoning serious assault or any of the crimes committed. But
Speaker 2: remember these were committed by children. Most of these crimes
Speaker 2: were committed around the ages of ten to fourteen, and
Speaker 2: this exposed them then to the system. You're talking about
Speaker 2: children who are already victims of severe abuse, who may
Speaker 2: have been exposed to drug and alcohol very early on,
Speaker 2: of witness shocking level of domestic violence, who often come
Speaker 2: from underresourced communities and localities where their schooling is unacceptable,
Speaker 2: where the level of care provided by the government to
Speaker 2: their community is unacceptable, where children with learning difficulties, with
Speaker 2: severe health problems fall through the cracks on a daily basis,
Speaker 2: Is it any wonder a certain percentage of these children
Speaker 2: end up committing what are quite frankly, for the most part,
Speaker 2: minor crimes. And then that same society that has routinely
Speaker 2: let these children down, who for so many of these families,
Speaker 2: has let them down for generations, then has the nerve
Speaker 2: to detain these children, And that these recommendations now talk
Speaker 2: about a new model of bail and secure detention accommodation.
Speaker 2: Secure detention accommodation. Is that a recommendation we should be supporting.
Speaker 2: One of the main key recommendations that human rights organizations
Speaker 2: are getting behind is the call for the age of
Speaker 2: criminal responsibility to be raised from ten to twelve. Think
Speaker 2: about the stupidity of that statement. Is a child the
Speaker 2: age of twelve any better placed to cope with having
Speaker 2: been in a situation of experiencing abuse and violence themselves,
Speaker 2: of having been failed by the school system, the health system,
Speaker 2: their communities, being failed, having possibly witnessed domestic violence in
Speaker 2: their home, having been abused and assaulted by police, and
Speaker 2: targeted by police, many suffering undiagnosed mental health issues, learning difficulties.
Speaker 2: These children are seeking help they're seeking attention. They're trying
Speaker 2: to get that help by raising attention about the problems
Speaker 2: they're facing. And because they're ten, eleven, or even twelve,
Speaker 2: the way they seek that out is often through what
Speaker 2: society calls misbehavior. This is not misbehavior. Society has failed
Speaker 2: these children. These children are not failing society. Is a
Speaker 2: twelve year old capable of being criminally responsible having gone
Speaker 2: through everything we know these children have suffered prior to
Speaker 2: ever seen a courtroom. Is the age of ten to
Speaker 2: twelve really that different? This is not just the recommendation
Speaker 2: of the Royal Commission. What human rights organizations, supposed experts
Speaker 2: who should know better are saying should be implemented for
Speaker 2: the betterment of these children. This is ridiculous. Now I
Speaker 2: want to explain some of the reasons this is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: And Australia has a shocking track record on juvenile justice,
Speaker 2: and it's particularly shocking when it comes to dealing with
Speaker 2: Aboriginal and torrestraight islander peoples. You would have thought a
Speaker 2: Royal Commission that had tens of millions of dollars available
Speaker 2: to it would have been able to look at what's
Speaker 2: world best practice, what are other countries doing that aren't
Speaker 2: failing their children so poorly. If I had tens of
Speaker 2: millions of dollars available to me, I know that I
Speaker 2: could seek out some of these answers. We know that
Speaker 2: people like Debbie Kilroy from Sisters Inside routinely speaks and
Speaker 2: writes and talks about what some of the solutions are,
Speaker 2: and the solutions were not contained in the recommendations. Now,
Speaker 2: I want to talk about a country in Europe, the
Speaker 2: country of Belgium, and how it deals with the issue
Speaker 2: of the youth justice system. And what Belgium does is
Speaker 2: that it divides the responsibility for youth justice between the
Speaker 2: national government and local communities and they share a responsibility.
Speaker 2: It's not broken down into states and territories or as
Speaker 2: you might have in the United Kingdom in counties or
Speaker 2: things like that. It's the federal level and the local
Speaker 2: community level. And one of the things this recommendation by
Speaker 2: this new Royal Commission failed to do in Australia was
Speaker 2: really recommend that it be tackled by the federal government.
Speaker 2: So when did Belgium begin this process of realizing they
Speaker 2: had a problem. Was it fifteen years ago, was it
Speaker 2: thirty years ago? No? It was in nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 2: two years before Australia even decided to include Aboriginal and
Speaker 2: Torres Strait Islander people as part of the population. And
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty five the Parliament of Belgium introduced the
Speaker 2: Youth Protection Act. And the Youth Protection Act has one
Speaker 2: main focus, and that is about establishing a rehabilitive framework
Speaker 2: for those children who find themselves facing juvenile justice. It's
Speaker 2: about avoiding court as much as possible and it puts
Speaker 2: the onus on the government and local communities, not the children.
Speaker 2: The purpose of what they call the YPA the US
Speaker 2: Protection Act is also to look long term and it
Speaker 2: analyzes the needs of the child's future welfare, the child's
Speaker 2: protection and education, rather than punishing that child for their
Speaker 2: prior offenses. Now, think about what we've heard in recommendations
Speaker 2: that everyone has read and seen over the last few days,
Speaker 2: that a shift from ten to twelve for criminal responsibility,
Speaker 2: only detaining children in these centers in Australia once they're fourteen,
Speaker 2: developing more secure detention accommodation, increasing the involvement of Aboriginal
Speaker 2: organizations in youth detention. So when does Belgium act and
Speaker 2: consider that the incarceration of a child is even on
Speaker 2: the table, not until the age of eighteen, not ten
Speaker 2: or twelve as we have in Australia, not fourteen, but eighteen.
Speaker 2: And think about the other words they don't use, whereas
Speaker 2: we say detention, detention, detention. The YPA has three key
Speaker 2: categories that must be fulfilled future welfare, protection and education
Speaker 2: protection not detention. What the Belgium system recognizes is that
Speaker 2: these children have been subjected to abuse, both inside detention
Speaker 2: and often outside of detention. But these children and have
Speaker 2: been let down by the education system, and that's why
Speaker 2: education is one of the three key factors that these
Speaker 2: children have often been filed by the state in terms
Speaker 2: of their welfare, their health, their schooling, their mental well being,
Speaker 2: their access to language and culture. And what is the
Speaker 2: first principle of the YPA in Belgium the youth's future welfare.
Speaker 2: It takes what's happened, often being the crime having been
Speaker 2: committed by the child, understands why that took place, does
Speaker 2: not punish the child for this, but looks to give
Speaker 2: them a brighter future, to protect them and to educate them. Originally,
Speaker 2: there was a mistake in the YPA, which allowed for
Speaker 2: children who had committed the most heinous of crimes to
Speaker 2: be sanctioned for life to prison for life, and that
Speaker 2: was overturned many many years ago in the early nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: This is something Australia hasn't caught up to in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: nearly forty years later. What it's now done is prohibit
Speaker 2: any of these life sentences being handed down to children
Speaker 2: who are even seventeen. We're talking about raising that age
Speaker 2: in Australia to fourteen. The other thing it does is
Speaker 2: that it limits prosecutors' options when they go to court
Speaker 2: with a juvenile defender. The options they're given as a
Speaker 2: prosecutor are only four and this is designed to make
Speaker 2: it very simple to understand. And the other aspect is
Speaker 2: that youth in Belgium by law, must be granted free
Speaker 2: legal representation, not legal aid, where there is limits placed
Speaker 2: on it in terms of the monetary cost, where you
Speaker 2: have legal services who are overburdened with the number of
Speaker 2: clients they're taking on, who operate on limited budgets, where
Speaker 2: the child does not get to choose a lawyer like
Speaker 2: every adult would if they were given a chance and
Speaker 2: had the money to choose their own lawyer. It doesn't
Speaker 2: punish the child for being poor. It gives the child
Speaker 2: a lawyer who is best suited to that child's circumstances
Speaker 2: and who is not capped on an amount of money.
Speaker 2: Meaning they're meeting the child at the front of the
Speaker 2: court ten minutes before they go into the courtroom. And
Speaker 2: so what happens is the prosecutor is on a level
Speaker 2: playing field. It is not the weight of the state
Speaker 2: versus a child and a limited resources legal aid defender.
Speaker 2: It's a lawyer acting on behalf of the state who
Speaker 2: has to ensure the future welfare, protection and education of
Speaker 2: the child, and the defender of the child who has
Speaker 2: to ensure that this is tailored for that individual child.
Speaker 2: So the four options that the prosecutors are given are simple.
Speaker 2: They can dismiss the charges altogether. That is, they can
Speaker 2: say a child of under eighteen can make a mistake,
Speaker 2: should not be punished, the crime was not that serious,
Speaker 2: and that there is no need to even expose these
Speaker 2: children to the court system, let alone the inside of
Speaker 2: a detention versus facility a jail. The second option they
Speaker 2: have is to send the child to special youth service
Speaker 2: and what these special youth services do. Again, again, this
Speaker 2: avoids court and it addresses with the use of social
Speaker 2: workers and youth workers the personal needs of the child
Speaker 2: and the family's need so that they can address the issues.
Speaker 2: So if it's a child with a learning difficulty, that
Speaker 2: these can be addressed. If it's a child that suffered trauma,
Speaker 2: a child who is not receiving acceptable schooling, a child
Speaker 2: who is witnessing domestic violence in the home or is
Speaker 2: exposed to drug and alcohol use, that both that child
Speaker 2: is assisted and that their family is assisted. It understands
Speaker 2: that children come from family units. It doesn't make any
Speaker 2: judgment about that family unit and what that unit comprises
Speaker 2: simply states that both the child and the family need
Speaker 2: assistance and tailored assistance for that child to ensure that
Speaker 2: they don't get into trouble again, to ensure their future
Speaker 2: welfare is sound. The third option, now remember there's only four,
Speaker 2: and so far we have not seen a punitive option
Speaker 2: on the table for the prosecutor in Belgium, is that
Speaker 2: the prosecutor can order alternative sanctions, and what that means
Speaker 2: is once again the child is referred to the special
Speaker 2: youth services, but that the child's family is mandated by
Speaker 2: the prosecution's offers to attend. Now, this can be crucially
Speaker 2: important where children are being let down by their own family,
Speaker 2: where children themselves are doing their very best, but perhaps
Speaker 2: mum or dad has a drug or alcohol issue, Perhaps
Speaker 2: there's domestic violence in the home that's preventing one of
Speaker 2: the parents assisting the child to the best of their ability.
Speaker 2: Perhaps there's an inability of the family to provide enough
Speaker 2: so that the child can attend school, and that this
Speaker 2: has repeatedly occurred and the child is continually falling through
Speaker 2: the cracks. So all this does is mandate that the
Speaker 2: family must go to the youth services and that they
Speaker 2: must cooperate with the youth service and work together. The
Speaker 2: final option is that the juvenile may be referred to court,
Speaker 2: and the only court they can be referred to is
Speaker 2: a youth court. Now, in only twenty percent of all
Speaker 2: offenses by juveniles did the matters end up in youth court.
Speaker 2: Eighty percent of the time when children were charged with
Speaker 2: a serious crime, the three alternative measures were taken. Since
Speaker 2: the year two thousand, those formal charges were dismissed on agreement.
Speaker 2: In seventy percent of cases. So, not only do you
Speaker 2: only have twenty percent of children ending up in a
Speaker 2: youth court where a judge is required to intervene, in
Speaker 2: seventy percent of those cases, between the judge, the prosecution
Speaker 2: and the child's lawyer and representative, they were able to
Speaker 2: dismiss those charges. The child never had to go to
Speaker 2: juvenile attention, never had to have a charge on their record,
Speaker 2: and alternatives were found, usually going back to the three options.
Speaker 2: Why isn't this what the human rights organizations in Australia
Speaker 2: are calling for? Why isn't this what we're seeking to do. Yes,
Speaker 2: we understand that there are some children who commit heinous crimes.
Speaker 2: We did not have children that were before the Royal
Speaker 2: Commission in the Northern Territory who were overwhelmingly charged with
Speaker 2: serious crimes. These were overwhelmingly petty crimes, crimes of small theft,
Speaker 2: crimes of property damage. These are not children who belong
Speaker 2: inside prisons, and who certainly do not belong inside a
Speaker 2: prison that resent rules one ton of mobile. Overwhelmingly, what
Speaker 2: happens in Australia is that Aboriginal Entrostraight Islander children are
Speaker 2: targeted by the police just as adult Aboriginal Entirestraight Islander
Speaker 2: people are too. Raising an age of criminal responsibility from
Speaker 2: ten to twelve does not change the fact that racism
Speaker 2: and the systematic chart targeting of a people will continue.
Speaker 2: It just buys the police two more years before they
Speaker 2: can intervene and do their dirty work. It just buys
Speaker 2: those corrections officers two more years before they can get
Speaker 2: their hands on children and abuse them. As we saw
Speaker 2: on tape and video. This is unacceptable. It was unacceptable
Speaker 2: for Belgium in nineteen sixty five. It should be unacceptable
Speaker 2: to Australia in two thousand and seventeen. Now. I want
Speaker 2: to point out that Belgium is not perfect. Mistakes have
Speaker 2: been made in their system. They are moving now to
Speaker 2: improve the system and the model they've been working with
Speaker 2: because it was one that was implemented in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 2: It is not a Navana, it is not a utopia,
Speaker 2: but it is a hell of a lot better than
Speaker 2: the system we have in Australia. What the systems in
Speaker 2: countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland show is that we
Speaker 2: don't need to just close don Dale. We don't need
Speaker 2: to just raise ages by arbitrary numbers. What is the
Speaker 2: difference between ten and twelve. These are children. What we
Speaker 2: need to do is close all of these juvenile detention facilities.
Speaker 2: Children do not belong in prison, Children belong in school,
Speaker 2: Children with drug and alcohol issues belong with drug and
Speaker 2: alcohol counselors. The Royal Commission exposed that children were denied
Speaker 2: psychological services and denied medication that was prescribed to them
Speaker 2: for their mental health. You do not deny a child,
Speaker 2: or any citizen of this country or the world, the
Speaker 2: right and the access to the mental health services they need,
Speaker 2: and then tell us that you are rehabilitating this child.
Speaker 2: You're not. This is pure punishment. And finally, I want
Speaker 2: to point out something that I think backs up this
Speaker 2: worse than almost anything else, and that's to go to
Speaker 2: the man who was the Corrective Services Minister at the time,
Speaker 2: and I won't say his name because he doesn't deserve
Speaker 2: to have his name mentioned. He states that the Royal
Speaker 2: Commission has vindicated him. So the human rights organizations in
Speaker 2: Australia calling for these recommendations, this lifting of the age
Speaker 2: from ten to twelve, more consultation before a child is detained,
Speaker 2: making detention centers more secure, whatever that means, are agreeing
Speaker 2: with the man who oversaw all the abuses that you
Speaker 2: witnessed on four corners. You should not have human rights
Speaker 2: organizations who are supposedly speaking for the benefit of these
Speaker 2: children in agreement with the very man who oversaw the
Speaker 2: abuse of these children. This highlights just how weak and
Speaker 2: absurd and what crap these recommendations are, and why the
Speaker 2: these problems will continue until we take a serious look
Speaker 2: at the situation we have in Australia, until we take
Speaker 2: a serious look at what is world best practice, and
Speaker 2: until we start to work with communities on the ground.
Speaker 2: None of these experts I saw this week on TV
Speaker 2: ever attend communities, nor belong to them. They sit in
Speaker 2: fancy officers in the cities, paid large sums, just like
Speaker 2: the Royal Commissioner paid large sums, just like the former
Speaker 2: Corrective Services Minister who oversaw this abuse, and from on
Speaker 2: high they hand down these decisions, just as this fifty
Speaker 2: four million dollar Royal Commission has handed down this decision. Now,
Speaker 2: I welcome that this Royal Commission shone a spotlight on
Speaker 2: the abuse that took place. I welcome that we know
Speaker 2: the name of children like Dylan Volla, and we've heard
Speaker 2: from deal one and we've seen him speak and talk
Speaker 2: for himself about the things he was subjected to while
Speaker 2: he was inside. And we've also seen him rehabilitate before
Speaker 2: our eyes, not while he was in Dondale, but when
Speaker 2: he was back with his family and his community. But
Speaker 2: was his example used by the Royal Commission to show
Speaker 2: that being with loved ones, being embraced by your community,
Speaker 2: being allowed access to rehability of services is what helps
Speaker 2: and not being in prison. No, all we're talking about
Speaker 2: are raising ages, making prison facilities more secure and continuing
Speaker 2: this abuse. And these recommendations only relate to the Northern Territory.
Speaker 2: The rest of Australia goes completely unscrutinized. Kevin Henry was
Speaker 2: sadly in juvenile attention too. Kevin Henry experienced savage treatment
Speaker 2: in juvenile detention. He was failed by the state and
Speaker 2: he was failed by the many guards who subjected him
Speaker 2: to that abuse and mistreatment. And now an innocent man,
Speaker 2: Kevin Henry is serving twenty something years for a crime
Speaker 2: he didn't commit. This is what happens when you get
Speaker 2: it wrong for decades at a time. It is unacceptable
Speaker 2: that the calls for these lazy, half hearted, poorly researched,
Speaker 2: and what will often be poorly executed recommendations are put
Speaker 2: in place. We need a nationwide overhaul. State should be
Speaker 2: stripped of their power to detain children, and there needs
Speaker 2: to be packed between the federal government and local communities
Speaker 2: to work together for the future welfare, protection, and education
Speaker 2: of all our children, not their imprisonment. That was curtin
Speaker 2: the podcast.