In the belly of the Cleveland youth detention centre is a school with teachers but often no students.
It is ringed by accommodation blocks where, sources allege, hundreds of school-age children have been kept for extended periods in solitary confinement – in circumstances that may breach Queensland’s own laws – because there were not enough guards to let them out.
A Guardian Australia investigation into the Townsville centre – one of three Queensland youth prisons – has heard that cell block lockdowns of young people became so common and widespread at Cleveland earlier this year that some spent months in detention and attended almost no classes or rehabilitation programs.
Whistleblowers speak of “filthy” conditions where food scraps and other rubbish have been left to pile up outside cell doors for days.
But it is the widespread and ongoing use of solitary confinement that staff, youth workers and inmates all say is further traumatising young people and turbocharging recidivism rates in the community.
Guardian Australia can reveal that senior Queensland ministers – whose government has boasted of having the “toughest” youth justice laws in Australia – were warned 12 months ago that the youth prison was on the verge of crisis and becoming “like Guantánamo”.
Genevieve Sinclair, chief executive of the Cairns-based youth organisation Youth Empowered Towards Independence (Yeti), says she made the comment at a meeting attended by the police minister, Mark Ryan, and the then youth justice minister, Leanne Linard.
Sinclair says she also raised concerns related to cleanliness, use of solitary confinement and a lack of schooling with ministers and senior bureaucrats.
“We cannot deliver successful programs in the community if children are subject to torturous conditions in detention,” Sinclair says.
“In the 15 years I have worked at Yeti we have never seen children exiting detention so impacted and angry about the treatment within the detention system.
“The conditions … at Cleveland are causing crime in our community and everyone deserves better, both the community in relation to their safety and young people in relation to their human rights.”
Court judgments reveal grim life inside
Jenny, 16, spent 89 days on remand at Cleveland from the end of last year. Court documents show that for 47 of those days she was locked in her cell for more than 21 hours and that she did not attend the school building during her entire three-month stay.
Last year the Queensland government’s own youth justice review studied a cohort of kids in youth detention. It found that every single one had found themselves incarcerated after becoming disengaged from schooling. Like them, Jenny, who was born in a remote north Queensland community, had done well in school until a few years ago, when she began dating a particular boy and got caught up in the youth justice system.
Court documents say she had “a particular joy for music and sport”, and that she wanted to restart her education.
But for the time she was in Cleveland, the education and training centre – a school with art rooms, a recording studio, workshops and about 30 teaching staff – was effectively off limits to its students.
Jenny’s story is one of a number revealed in recent court judgments that have cast light on the grim conditions children face in detention.
In a recent submission to parliament, Cairns-based barrister Tim Grau said: “More often than not juveniles … are incarcerated for extended periods of time, being held on remand, only to be released once sentenced having not undertaken a single rehabilitative program.”
The Queensland government’s youth justice review from 2022 acknowledges that detention without rehabilitation “does not work”. That same review made recommendations that highlighted the importance of schooling options for children in the youth justice system.
The state education department says “all students within the detention centre are entitled to engage in education” and that the school has “never been closed”.
When children are not allowed out of their cell blocks to attend classes, the department says it supplies educational materials, provides support and conducts classes within the residential units.
‘It’s like a rat park’
Heightened concern about youth crime in Queensland has led to a series of increasingly “tough” responses from the state government, each resulting in more children being arrested and ultimately detained in the youth justice system.
Those policy measures have pushed the system beyond capacity. Youth detention centres are full and large numbers of children – currently about 50 – are being held in police custody in adult watch houses.
At the same time, staffing levels in youth justice, but particularly at Cleveland, have reached crisis levels. Union agreements demand that when units are understaffed, children are kept in “continuous cell occupation” or “blackout” mode, which has the effect that they are restricted to their cell bocks, kept mostly in solitary confinement and do not attend classes, activities or rehabilitation programs.
One whistleblower, who regularly went into Cleveland until earlier this year, said he had previously worked with Australia’s Border Force, detaining illegal fishers.
“How they’re treated and kept and detained … that’s better than the way we treat these kids,” he says.
The worker said he had seen children detained for nonviolent offences develop violent behaviours during their time at Cleveland, while confined to cells.
“They’re kids … you keep a young teenager anywhere they’re going to have energy. You release them out of a cell after being kept locked down for seven days, they’re full of energy, a fight breaks out and workers have to go and deal with it,” he says.
“It’s like a rat park, the environmental effect it would have on your mind. You walk into these facilities and there’s ripped mattresses, it’s graffitied everywhere. There’s a day or two worth of food rubbish, [fruit juice] poppers and half-eaten sandwiches, at the door of cells because they don’t have enough staff to pick them up.”
Overcrowding and staffing problems
Another whistleblower, a guard at the centre, says staffing numbers had gotten so low that for a period of about 14 weeks guards “couldn’t even escort people around”.
“It all comes back to staffing,” the guard said. “It is a low-paid and high-risk job. The rules are that we do whatever we can to avoid risk, which means kids stay in cells a lot.
“The longer kids are in cells, the worse their behaviour gets.”
The guard says “once kids are involved in any sort of incident, they require a ‘double escort’”. This means two guards must accompany them when moving around the centre.
“Put a kid on a ‘double escort’ and the only time they’ll ever leave their unit is if they’ve got a court hearing.”
The Queensland public guardian, Shayna Smith, says several community visitors to children’s detention centres had raised concerns about access to services, programs and support, including education.
“Chronic overcrowding in Queensland youth detention centres and staff shortages also regularly result in lockdowns, and extended periods of isolation for children,” Smith tells Guardian Australia.
“The cumulative impact of this repeated and prolonged isolation can have a significant impact on the wellbeing of already vulnerable children, significantly reducing the potential for their successful rehabilitation.”
Queensland has announced plans to build two new youth detention centres with “therapeutic design elements”: one at Woodford near Brisbane and the other at an undetermined site in north Queensland. But sources in the youth justice department say they doubt the facilities will ever be built.
“We can’t staff the centres we have now,” the source said.
The bigger issue is what to do in the interim, including how to reduce pressure on the detention system and get children out of police watch houses.
In recent months, the government has attempted to hire more youth detention workers in Townsville and has brought staff to north Queensland from Brisbane temporarily. Teachers at the school say those measures have made some difference but that many children still aren’t able to attend the centre and attendance ebbs and flows.
Whistleblowers say state government responses to concerns paint a picture of how centres are supposed to run, but ignores the reality that the system is in crisis.
A spokesperson from the department of youth justice said it remained “firmly committed to helping all young people break the cycle of crime, and giving them the opportunity to turn their lives around”.
“Regardless of whether a young person in detention is on remand or sentenced, they can access a range of education, vocational and rehabilitation programs.
“They also have access to specialised mental health services, including drug and alcohol interventions, to further support their rehabilitation and transition back into their communities.”
‘When you get out you’re not the same’
Statistics show that the numbers of children involved in criminal activities has consistently declined over the past few decades, but that a cohort of recidivist offenders has increased, accounting for regional spikes in certain offences.
Those who spend time in Cleveland say being in detention only makes them more likely to reoffend when they leave.
Ricky, 14, has spent more than a dozen separate stints in Cleveland, the first when he was 10. He says it was “a filthy place” and that conditions inside are now much more harsh than they were a few years ago.
“Back in the day, like when I first went there, it seemed like a detention centre … but [in] 2023 you look at it like it’s actually started to look like a jail.
“The way that it messes you up, it doesn’t make you the same on the outside. You used to be quiet or whatnot, when you get out you’re not the same.”
Written Off seeks to detail the experiences of young people in Queensland’s justice system, where record numbers of children are being arrested and imprisoned. Know more? Contact ben.smee@theguardian.com
