Victoria’s minister for children, Jenny Mikakos, said there were “obvious risks” that children in detention would assault and rape each other if they were placed in shared cells.
The minister made the comment on Twitter during a back-and-forth with the director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre, Ruth Barson, about juvenile prisoners who are currently being detained in Barwon prison, a high-risk, maximum security prison for adults.
The children were moved to the adult prison after ongoing rioting at the Parkville and Malmsbury youth detention centres, which caused damage to the facilities. Some of the children moved to the adult prison were not involved in the rioting.
Last week, the court of appeal upheld a ruling by the supreme court that detaining the children in Barwon was unlawful, because the government had failed to take certain factors into consideration before declaring an area of the prison a youth justice facility. The court ordered the children be removed from Barwon.
But 24 hours later, Mikakos said the government had again re-gazetted the Grevillea unit of Barwon as a youth justice facility, this time having adressed the outstanding issues. She maintained the decision was in the best interests of the children.
On Twitter, Barson said: “Let’s hope 2017 sees a change of heart by this Gov, in favor of upholding children’s human rights”. She linked to a comment piece she wrote for Fairfax Media about what she described as a crisis in youth detention.
Mikakos responded with a series of tweets, saying Barson had failed to acknowledge existing child detention facilities were “far worse” than the adult prison, and that children would be forced to share cells if they were returned to Parkville of Malmsbury, some of which did not have a toilet. Barwon was “a lawful facility comparable to others,” she wrote.
Barson replied that the children had said they would “prefer to share cells and toilets, than be illegally confined in maximum security adult jail”.
It prompted Mikakos to reply: “and when they assaulted and raped each other, what then Ruth? You don’t care about the obvious risks”.
Barson said while she encouraged open and frank dialogue from ministers, she was concerned by the forum in which Mikakos expressed her views. “A minister with caring responsibilities for children is making comments that children might see about themselves and I am concerned about the impact that might have on them,” she said.
“The other point is that these kids are in jail because we’re trying to teach them that there’s no excuse for breaking the law, and we want them to be remorseful. But some of them have been held in what the courts have determined is an unlawful facility, and yet the government is anything but contrite.”
Guardian Australia requested an interview with Mikakos but was told she was unavailable. Instead, a department of health and human services spokeswoman sent a statement.
“There is reduced opportunity to supervise and separate vulnerable or violent young people when double-bunking,” the statement said. “This has the potential to lead to serious incidents including assault and sexual assault. Double-bunking also presents risks to the safety of staff at these facilities.”
At both Malmsbury and Parkville there are a number of double rooms used when it may be appropriate for cultural and other reasons for young detainees to share.
The interim report from the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody found cell sharing may help to reduce the number of deaths in custody, and that Aboriginal detainees should not be confined alone in cells.
During evidence given to the supreme court on 21 December,the director of secure services for the department of health and human services, Ian Lanyon, was asked about risks that emerged when youth in detention were forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor of rooms.
“What we will try to do in these circumstances is do a risk assessment on both young people as to their suitability to be accommodated together, but whenever the door closes at night, there’s a significant risk to both of those young people,” he said.
“This would exacerbate, you know, opportunity for sexual or physical assault to occur within those rooms.”
However, Lanyon was speaking specifically about risks that occurred when youth detention facilities were at capacity and extra mattresses were subsequently placed on floors, rather than about risks to children in purpose-built share cells.
While Mikakos justified her position by linking on Twitter to an Ombudsman report on deaths and harm in custody that described an increased risk of sexual assault when prisoners shared cells, this report referred only to adult prisoners, and was in relation to overcrowding, not sharing shells generally.
Greens MP Nina Springle accused Mikakos of demonising children. “She’s now labelling them as rapists, it’s crazy,” Springle said.
“I do think what’s gotten lost in this whole debate is how this is impacting on these kids. These really are children, they’re not adults and they can’t make decisions in the same way adults do. There seems to be some scepticism about that, but it’s true, and it’s also true that some of these children have come from extremely difficult backgrounds. This is no way to rehabilitate them.”
