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ABC News
4 days ago
- Politics
- ABC News
NT to reinstate use of spit hoods in youth detention, eight years after royal commission sparked ban
The Northern Territory government has flagged it will reinstate the use of spit hoods on young people in youth detention centres, almost eight years after the practice was banned. The proposal is one of several changes to the Youth Justice Act 2005 and Youth Justice Regulations 2006 expected to be introduced and debated in NT parliament this week by the Country Liberal Party (CLP) government. In a statement on Monday, the government said the proposed changes would also include: The CLP pledged during last year's NT election to reintroduce the use of spit hoods on youths if elected to government. On Monday, NT Deputy Chief Minister and Corrections Minister Gerard Maley said the legislative changes would be introduced to parliament as a matter of "urgency", following the stabbing at the weekend of a 15-year-old boy at the Royal Darwin Show. Mr Maley said the "community have had enough" when it came to youth crime in the territory. "This is another piece of legislation we're going to do to make sure Territorians can go to work, go to the show and live in the Northern Territory safely," he said. NT Corrections Commissioner Matthew Varley said the proposed amendments were about ensuring "safety and security" for staff and young people in youth detention centres. "These amendments this week are about making sure our staff have the tools, the powers and the procedures to make sure that environment is safe and secure,' he said. "We're wanting to see a change to the past where our officers have been exposed to risk, our officers have been exposed to assault and harm, and our youth detention centres have been damaged and destroyed. Controversy over the NT's use of spit hoods received significant media attention in 2016 following an ABC Four Corners report into the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre, which led to then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull announcing a royal commission into juvenile justice and child protection in the territory. In 2017, following the federal government's formal endorsement of a United Nations protocol against torture and inhumane punishments, the NT government stopped the use of spit hoods and restraint chairs in youth detention centres. However, it was not until 2022 that the use of spit hoods for youth in police custody was also banned by the then-Labor government, though the ban was never formalised in legislation. In a statement on Monday, an NT Police Force (NTPF) spokesperson confirmed that since October 2024, spit hoods had once again been made available to use on youths in police watch houses and cells. "The NTPF have strict policies in place for their use", the spokesperson said. NT Children's Commissioner Shahleena Musk said the proposed amendments to the Youth Justice Act reflected a "failure" by the government "to meet with key stakeholders, including legal and social service experts". "It goes against all the evidence of what actually works to try to reduce challenging behaviours, particularly in a custodial setting," she said. "We're the only jurisdiction that is now going back to using spit hoods on children. Ms Musk said she was also concerned about the planned change to ensure detention was no longer a last resort. "[It] is against international law, it's against child rights. It can lead to unjust dispositions by the court, that is not able to then balance the needs of that child against other considerations," she said. Opposition Leader Selena Uibo labelled the government's decision a "reactive, knee-jerk response" that would not have a "holistic impact when it comes to improving community safety". "Everything that these millions and millions of dollars of royal commissions or reports have shown not to do, the CLP is doing," she said. In a statement, the National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls also condemned the proposed amendments and called for "the urgent withdrawal of this legislation". "These proposed changes represent a punitive attack on the rights, dignity, and lives of children in the Northern Territory," said Debbie Kilroy OAM, chief executive of Sisters Inside. Ms Kilroy labelled the re-introduction of spit hoods as a "grotesque failure of leadership", and cited the interstate cases of Wayne Fella Morrison and Selesa Taifaifa — who both died following incidents involving the use of spit hoods — as examples of their "deadly consequences". "Let us be clear: spit hoods are instruments of torture. They are used to degrade, control and silence," Ms Kilroy said. Ms Kilroy also criticised the planned removal of the principle of detention as a last resort. "Many of the children who appear before the courts are themselves victims — victims of violence, poverty, neglect, racism and state failure," she said. "They are not born 'offenders', they are criminalised by a system that was never designed to protect them." The proposed amendments will be introduced to the NT parliament on Tuesday.
ABC News
23-07-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Federal government under pressure to intervene in NT incarceration 'crisis'
One of Australia's largest Aboriginal legal services is calling on the federal government to intervene in what it is calling an incarceration "crisis" in the Northern Territory. The NT's prison population has soared to unprecedented levels in recent months, with prisoners locked up inside police watch houses for days on end due to a lack of beds at correctional facilities. In one recent incident, an 11-year-old Aboriginal girl who was initially denied bail was detained overnight inside Palmerston's overcrowded police watch house, where the lights remain on 24 hours a day. The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency's (NAAJA) acting chief executive, Anthony Beven, has called on the federal government to suspend Commonwealth funding for remote policing and other justice-related operations until the NT government changes its hardline approach to crime. Since the Country Liberal Party came to power last year, the NT government has lowered the age of criminal responsibility from 12 back to 10 and introduced tougher bail laws for both adults and children. Mr Beven said the measures were not working to reduce crime and were leading to large numbers of Aboriginal people being incarcerated. "One of the unique things we have here in the Northern Territory is that the Commonwealth actually funds the Northern Territory police for remote policing and other options," Mr Beven said. The NT Police Force was budgeted to receive about $50 million in Commonwealth funding in 2024-25. Mr Beven also said NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro had so far refused to meet with NAAJA and other Aboriginal leaders to discuss strategies aimed at reducing crime. In a statement, Federal Indigenous Australians Minister Marndirri McCarthy said: "There is something very wrong with the Northern Territory justice system when an 11-year-old girl is held in an adult police watch house for two days and one night." "It is primarily Northern Territory bail laws that are driving this issue," she said. Ms McCarthy said the NT government had previously committed to reducing the incarceration rates of First Nations people under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. NT Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby slammed Mr Beven's comments as "utterly absurd". "Threatening to cut essential funding to remote policing is counterproductive, dangerous, and undermines community confidence," Ms Boothby said in a statement. "There is no alternative: those who break the law will be arrested. "Corrections will continue to expand capacity to ensure those who are remanded or sentenced have a bed, because that's what the community expects." Ms Boothby said the adult prison in Berrimah, on Darwin's outskirts, would be expanded to accommodate an extra 238 prison beds by mid-August. Ms Finocchiaro has been contacted for comment. The situation in the Northern Territory comes amid growing international concern about youth justice in Australia. In a letter to the federal government in May, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Edwards, and the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Albert K Barume, singled out the NT's record on human rights. "Several states and the Northern Territory are announcing new 'tougher' criminal legislation, which seem to give little regard to international human rights standards," they wrote. The letter said there was an "ongoing pattern" of First Nations children being disproportionately incarcerated, noting that in the Northern Territory, Indigenous children are 32 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Indigenous children. It also said the NT government's decision to reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10 was "a step backwards", and criticised the lifting of a ban on spit hoods being used on children. "Spit hoods … are considered inherently in violation of the prohibition of torture and/or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," they wrote. The federal government has not responded to the letter in the requested 60-day timeframe.
