Banksia Hill teenager becomes the second child to die by suicide in WA's troubled youth detention system
Police in WA are investigating the death of a second teenager in youth custody in Perth. The 17-year-old was found unresponsive in his cell inside the Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre. A warning, this story discusses an incident of self-harm. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised this story contains the name of a person who has died.
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00:00Waking up to this news yesterday was really a dreadful sort of déjà vu.
00:07It was less than 12 months ago that 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd, an Indigenous teenager, died
00:14after he fatally self-harmed inside his cell at Unit 18 and now notorious youth wing inside
00:20Kazarina Adult Men's Prison.
00:23And an inquest is ongoing into Cleveland Dodd's death.
00:27This latest tragedy happened at Banksia Hill Youth Detention Centre.
00:31Authorities say the teenager arrived at Banksia Hill late on Tuesday.
00:36Initially, he was being monitored in the intensive supervision unit because when he arrived he
00:41was intoxicated.
00:43On Thursday afternoon, he was moved to the general area before being locked in a cell
00:48for the evening.
00:49And over the course of the evening, we know he was checked 10 times by my staff.
00:57On the 11th occasion, just prior to 10pm, he was found unresponsive.
01:00Well, clearly a failure has taken place because someone has lost their life.
01:05The government has been insisting that conditions in youth detention in Western Australia have
01:11vastly improved, particularly since the death of Cleveland Dodd.
01:15They say young people are spending fewer hours confined in their cells and there are fewer
01:20detainees overall.
01:22However, this latest tragedy has really prompted people to question how much has really changed
01:27and whether it's enough.
01:28I thought that that would be the catalyst for major system level reform.
01:33And yet, here we are again talking about the same issue.
01:38It'll now be up to investigators and the coroner to examine what could have been done to prevent
01:43this 17-year-old boy's death.
01:45In the meantime, the Human Rights Commission has written to the WA Premier Roger Cook seeking
01:50an urgent meeting.
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