Mick Gooda, the co-commissioner of the Northern Territory's youth detention royal commission, has blasted the decision to build a new youth detention facility next to an existing adult prison, warning it will lead to more "punitive" treatment of juveniles in detention.
Almost five years after the commission recommended the government close the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin, Territory Families Minister Kate Worden announced on Thursday that the replacement centre would be complete by mid-2023.
It is a year behind the previous schedule.
The new $70 million facility on Darwin's outskirts will have space for 44 beds and Ms Worden said it would also adopt a more therapeutic model of care.
But Mr Gooda said the facility's new location went against the findings of his report.
It recommended any new youth detention centre be located away from the adult prison. Following community backlash at its proposed location in Pinelands, the government backflipped and opted to build the facility in Holtze.
"Young offenders are different to adult offenders, but here we go putting them side-by-side," Mr Gooda said.
"I can almost guarantee, if not a personnel exchange, there will be a culture exchange, where the culture of punishment and punitive treatment of adults will transfer to young people."
Mr Gooda said he had seen no evidence of a new model of therapeutic care being adopted in the Northern Territory's youth justice system.
"I'm yet to be convinced that's going to happen, or is happening."
New facility is 'world-class'
Ms Worden said she was confident the new Darwin Youth Justice Centre would have enough capacity to cater for the number of children currently in the NT's youth justice system.
But she denied the NT government had gone against the recommendations of the 2016 Royal Commission.
"We are continuing to implement all of the recommendations from the royal commission, and this is a very big part of it," she said.
"What's really important about these new centres is the model of care that will assist us to deliver all of the programs in a therapeutic way that best serves young people that are in our youth detention systems to choose a better path."
Ms Worden said the new centre had been designed to accommodate for inmates with foetal alcohol syndrome and provide health and legal services to young people.
"Even the colour palette has been considered," she said.
"This facility is being built in accordance with best practice. It has been informed by experts in the health sector, it has been informed by those experts in the education sector."
Ms Worden said works at the youth justice centre in Alice Springs were also nearing completion.
System has gone 'nowhere'
Outside the new centre's construction site, protesters vented their anger at the handling of youth justice in the Northern Territory.
Longtime youth justice advocate Natalie Hunter said the government had neglected proper funding of organisations, particularly in remote communities, to help young people stay on track.
"They're incarcerating them in a condemned prison," she said, referring to Don Dale.
"It breaks my heart that I've spent 20 years in the system and we've got nowhere."
"Our children is the next investment in our lives. What use is a community when we have a community of dysfunctional people as they grow into adults because of the trauma they have experienced through the child protection and the justice system?"
Last month, the ABC revealed the Northern Territory government was failing to adhere to its own independent monitoring process at Don Dale, at a time when self harm incidents in youth detention are surging.
