Page 4364 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
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Further, Mr Muir has not found any significant failings in the systems of behaviour management over the young people involved in this incident. Mr Muir also acknowledged that the staff involved in the incident acted with a high degree of professionalism, courage and teamwork.
Yesterday I was asked a series of questions in relation to lockdowns. I want to emphasise that an operational lockdown at Bimberi Youth Justice Centre is where a decision is made to secure all or some young people in their cabins for a period of time. Lockdowns occur for the minimum amount of time possible to ensure the safe operation of the centre.
This action is taken to ensure the safety of young people and staff of the centre, and is determined based on a number of factors, including the number of young people in the centre at the time; cohorts of young people and their risk classification; co-offenders; gender; age; victims and social dynamics; the activities and appointments of young people in the centre; and the number of staff on site to accommodate the number of young people in the centre.
The decision to undertake an operational lockdown is not taken lightly and can be authorised only by a member of the senior management team. During a lockdown, while in their rooms young people have access to television, reading, recreational activities and educational material. Lockdowns occur for the minimum amount of time possible to ensure the safe operation of the centre.
Since the major incident on 26 August 2019 there have been lockdowns ranging in length from one hour to 10 hours. It is important to note, however, that lockdowns occur on a rotational basis, meaning that in a 10-hour lockdown period an individual young person will be in their cabin for half of the total lockdown period, generally in one or two-hour blocks of time. To be clear, no young person has been confined to their cabin for 10 hours as a result of a lockdown.
I was also asked about visits. Every young person in Bimberi may have a visit by a family member or significant person each week. Bimberi prioritises visits with family and significant others, given the importance of maintaining family connection for young people while they are in Bimberi. There have been 272 visits by family and friends between July and September 2019.
A small number of approved visits have been rescheduled due to operational requirements. Bimberi has minimised any disruptions to family visits to the greatest extent possible. For example, prior to the incident there were 101 family and friends visits in July and in September 92 family and friends visits occurred.
After the incident on 26 August the centre was required to be secured on 27 August 2019, as per emergency operating procedures, while staff worked to restore operations. Since then there has been a need to postpone or reschedule some visits on five days. On these occasions approved visits were postponed or rescheduled as a result of staff needing to respond to codes at the time of the scheduled visit, because the visitor was not an approved visitor, or because of the need to induct a new arrival at the centre.
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