Department of Justice boss Adam Tomison claims Casuarina ‘safer and more secure’ for teenage inmates

The boss of WA’s Department of Justice has defended the State’s treatment of young offenders — despite the courts finding some were being unlawfully detained, and the cost of that detention reaching over $2000 per day. A shocking riot at the Banksia Hill Detention Centre — with an estimated damage bill of $22 million — was the culmination of a growing youth justice crisis, which had been building for years. Moving a cohort of young prisoners to the maximum security adult prison Casuarina in July 2022 was supposed to ease the burden and spread the load of work among stressed and pressured youth custodial officers. But in May this year, those left inside the State’s only youth detention centre went berserk — setting alight many of the prison buildings, leaving the centre in near ruins. After that torrid year — which also included a Supreme Court judgment ruling solitary confinement at Banksia Hill illegal — director general Adam Tomison used the foreword to the Department of Justice annual report to describe the events at Banksia Hill as “concerning”. But he also lauded some of the moves his department had made. “A new framework for transferring youth in detention has been implemented, and Unit 18 … at Casuarina Prison has been effective in providing a safer, more secure, temporary environment for a very difficult cohort of young males,” he said. “This has enabled other detainees at Banksia Hill to resume their normal education and recreational activities which were previously affected by ongoing disruptions from this group.” The report also revealed that the need for a second unit had meant the daily cost of housing one young offender had reached $2184. Last year, that cost was $1361. That compares to $408 per day for an adult prisoner, and $130 managing a young person through community supervision. In other revelations within the report, delays across WA courts continued to increase. In WA’s Supreme Court, the average time to a criminal trial reached 45 weeks in the last financial year, six weeks above the stated target — but seven weeks less than the COVID-riddled 2021-22. In the District Court, the time to trial blew out to 69 weeks — 37 weeks ahead of the stated target, and three weeks higher than last year. “(This was) due to an ongoing increase in demand for trials and pre-trial determinations as a result of legislative changes made in 2019 and an increase in the complexity of matters,” the report noted. “This has been exacerbated by the relisting of trials for a second or subsequent time, competing for court trial resources with trials being listed for the first time.” The media time to get the result of an inquest was 110 weeks, the time to finalise Family Court matters blew out to 48 weeks — 21 weeks above the KPI target. And assaults in WA prisons also continued to rise, with 60 serious assault incidents reported — 10 serious assaults where the victim was a staff member and 50 serious assaults where the victim was a prisoner.