The Latest Breaking News from Unit 18

The guard who found a teen with a self-inflicted injury in an adult prison's youth wing has told an inquest the death was tragic and could have been avoided.

Adam Tomison, Western Australia's justice department chief, has resigned two months after Indigenous teen Cleveland Dodd died in juvenile detention.

A 17-year-old boy with an extensive criminal record has been sentenced to an adult prison after engaging in riots in troubled youth detention facilities.

More details have emerged of unrest at a youth detention unit in Perth's Casuarina prison, with one officer confirmed injured in the latest altercation.

As it emerges that no member of the WA government has set foot inside the troubled juvenile detention facility since February, a Greens MP urges ministers to see its "bleak" conditions for themselves.

The former head of WA's Children's Court has called for a Royal Commission into the state's juvenile justice system as the fallout over the treatment of youth offenders in the state reaches boiling point.

A senior Perth judge accuses the WA government of "flouting the law" and "thumbing its nose at the court" in relation to the ongoing detention of juveniles inside an adult prison.

Mark McGowan says he disagrees with the state's children's court and the way it is handling some juvenile detainees in the latest escalation over the detention of teenagers in part of an adult prison.

The WA government is warned it risks being found in contempt of court for continuing to house juvenile detainees in an adult prison, with a senior Perth judge describing what's happening as 'barbaric", "cruel" and "a form of child abuse".