Page 3288 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 16 August 2011
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within a prison, has extreme negative effects on the young person and in general causes more problems within the custodial setting.
I also refer to the use of strip searches within Bimberi. When we talk about this group of young people we are working with, in many cases these young people are coming from situations where they have already been abused. We need to understand that they have been victims of trauma and abuse often from a very young age and that this has a range of impacts including developmental delays, intellectual incapacity, use of drugs and alcohol, violent behaviours, poor health and education outcomes and, of course, increased criminal behaviours.
I am concerned that, after signs of reducing strip searches from the Quamby days, we are seeing a return to strip searches as a state of routine. They are extremely traumatising and re-traumatising for the young people and deemed by the commission as an unreasonable limitation on rights to humane treatment and privacy. The commission reports that the presence of the opposite sex during strip searches was contrary to the Children and Young People Act 2008 and, again, unreasonably limited the right to humane treatment and privacy. The commission also noted a failure to seek the young person’s consent to a support person being there, if the staff had considered the need for a support person at all.
In the limited time left I would also like to highlight the impact that a lack of staffing has had on the functioning and cultural development of Bimberi. It starts with putting in place a strategy to help in the short term—for example, using the Coree unit as a behaviour management place. Coree is the admissions unit and is designed to protect the right of remandees to not mix with sentenced young people. However, for operational reasons this was ignored and remandees and sentenced young people were held together in an environment described by the commission as unnecessarily stark and devoid of stimulus, which is likely to reinforce anxiety. Before long, an initially short-term strategy became a long-term practice and the true policy and procedure a long forgotten detail. We cannot continue to use staff shortages as an excuse. We must make amends to ensure that we never see such low numbers of staff again, because I think we have demonstrated the negative impact this has on the development of system cultures.
One of the shameful parts of the report was about the accommodation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people. The Bimberi facility was purpose built with conjoining rooms, as recommended by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. However, to date, these rooms have not been appropriately used. The commission reported that, despite the high numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander residents—we must remember that, quite often, more than 50 per cent of residents on any day are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people—the doors were routinely locked and were not being utilised for such purposes. This is inconsistent with the royal commission’s findings and the Children and Young People Act 2008 and this must be addressed immediately.
The report has highlighted a system in crisis that needs strong and hands-on leadership and assistance to ensure positive outcomes for the future. At no point in this process have I heard the minister come forward and admit that the processes,
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