The mother of a 14-year-old boy locked inside Perth’s maximum security prison says she fears for his safety after escalating tensions within the unit.
Crystal Mason said she was alarmed after she heard reports on social media of a fire inside the Casuarina prison, where her son is incarcerated, on Sunday night and struggled to get information about his wellbeing.
“When I heard about it I just dropped to the ground, I saw mentions about fires and just saw all these comments about a fire at Casuarina, I was just panicking and I didn’t know what to do,” she said.
Mason said when she attempted to call the prison she was told no one was available at the unit.
“They just hung up … and then I couldn’t dial back as I realised I had no credit.
“There was there’s no communication from the staff. There’s still no communication now, I had to read about [it] on Facebook … I’m so scared for my son being in there,” Mason said.
Her son was one of 17 young people transferred to Unit 18, a special wing of the adult prison, in July. The WA government transferred the children, some as young as 14, from Perth’s Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre to the adult jail after “escalating” disruptions.
Last month advocates raised concerns about deteriorating mental health among the young detainees at the prison, and a teenager required medical treatment after self-harming.
The Department of Justice said it had an incident on Sunday night in the youth detention facility in Unit 18 and there were a number of small spot fires in the corridor of the wing, as well as a cell fire.
“One young person received external medical assessment for smoke inhalation and has since returned to Unit 18,” a spokesperson for the department said.
“The young people were evacuated to a safe area of Unit 18 as a precaution during the incident and later returned to their cells.”
Mason visited her son on Tuesday after the fire and said she was extremely worried about conditions inside the prison.
“He told me that one of the boys had smuggled in a lighter after getting out and being locked back up,” she said.
She said her son heard the boys talking about starting a riot.
“He is scared about it happening again. What if next time the fire is so intense [that] the guards can’t get in to save all the boys? That’s my biggest fear.”
Mason wanted the young people to be transferred back to Banksia Hill, which she believed provided more appropriate services for them.
“They should not be in there. Banksia’s doing school programs, they are doing a lot of different programs over there and these poor boys at Casuarina are getting locked down like dogs.”
Mason said her son had began “acting out” and getting into trouble after the death of his grandmother two years ago when he was 12. She believed restrictive lockdowns, even at Banksia, were causing the detainees to become frustrated and “disruptive”.
She also said when she would call or try to visit her son at Banksia, she would often be told by staff that she wasn’t able to because of restrictions or disruptive behaviour by the detainees.
“They get angry and upset because they would spend so much time in their cells, there used to be incidents, [they] keep on breaking things running amok, smashing phones, so they would say he can’t come to the phone.”
Crisis support services can be reached 24 hours a day: Lifeline 13 11 14; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78; Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636 24.
