Children were held in isolated custody for up to seven days for reasons of "health segregation", months after COVID restrictions had eased in the general ACT community.
And the independent team sent into investigate conditions at the Bimberi Youth Detention Centre was not offered the opportunity to speak to any of the children in custody, nor given access to the electronic record-keeping system operated by the Community Services Directorate.
A report to the ACT Assembly by the independent Inspector of Correctional Services Rebecca Minty found the practice of isolating children entering the Bimberi Youth Detention Centre "could not be justified", and yet it had continued until June this year, around the time the team went in to investigate.
The practice went on "despite youth detention not being considered a 'high-risk setting' by the ACT chief health officer since October 2022 and no other formal COVID-19 restrictions in place in the community", the report found.
"Children and young people are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of separation and isolation in detention," the report stated.
The report tabled in the Assembly made 13 recommendations, including that young people in Bimberi "are only ever isolated with legislated, legal safeguards such as access to review processes".
It also requested the Community Services Directorate "resource and prioritise the review and notification of policies and procedures relating to segregation and isolation".
The inspector also said the directorate was potentially in breach of its human rights obligations by limiting "the methodology and evidence basis for aspects of the [inspectorate's] review".
The restricted Bimberi records access also appears to be in contrast to the remit promised when the office of the independent inspector was created in 2017, when the then-minister Shane Rattenbury said the office would "increase transparency and accountability".
In a separate inquiry into an alleged sexual assault of a male prisoner at the Alexander Maconochie Centre, the inspector found potential evidence was not handled by ACT Corrections "in accordance with the relevant policy and procedure".
The incident occurred in a cottage where there was no CCTV coverage, and limited Corrections officer presence.
The victim had to be later admitted to hospital.
"I note there was a delay between the detained person first discussing the alleged assault with Justice Health Services and his eventual transfer to hospital for specialist sexual assault care. This review makes recommendations to address this deficiency," Ms Minty said.
In the wake of the 2022 Health Prisons assessment of the AMC, the government agreed in-principle to a strategy to "prevent, track and respond to incidents of sexual coercion and violence in the prison".
This is yet to happen, and the inspector pointed to the lack of policy framework for both Corrections and Justice Health Services in the areas of prevention, reporting and response to sexual assault in the AMC.
Last year, one in every four prisoners at the jail self-reported they had been victims of sexual assault or coercion.
