After teenager commits suicide in prison, lawyers warn about detention conditions

This is the second suicide in less than a year in this juvenile prison, which is the target of a group action denouncing the mistreatment suffered by adolescents, particularly Aboriginals.

In late August 2024, a 17-year-old boy committed suicide in a juvenile detention center in Perth, Australia. This detention center has a sinister reputation, with several reports denouncing the treatment inflicted on the children locked up there, the vast majority of whom are Aboriginal. This prison is the target of a class action brought by a Sydney law firm that has contacted more than a thousand young people who found themselves behind the walls of this prison, where the conditions of detention are absolutely appalling. The suicide that was recently made public is also the second in less than a year.

The reason the young people locked up there are going to such extremes is because they are treated as harshly, if not harsher, than adults, according to Dana Levitt, the lawyer leading the class action.Imagine being locked up alone, in a cell no bigger than a toilet, for 22 hours a day, day after day, as a child… Add to that the lack of access to their family, to outside support systems, such as psychological services“, explains the lawyer.

The testimony and evidence she has collected also points to excessive use of force, with some having their shoulders dislocated and others being tear-gassed. These conditions are inflicted first and foremost on young Aboriginal people. They make up more than 60% of children in detention in Australia, while in the general population, less than 6% of under-18s are Aboriginal.

In 2018, Amnesty International published a scathing report on the conditions of detention of minors. The authorities seem to be aware that this is nothing to be proud of. Last year, they refused to open the doors of this prison to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.

This case also illustrates another tragedy that affects Aboriginal people, and the youngest among them in particular: suicide. The figures are frightening. More than one in five Aboriginal people under the age of 25 die as a result of suicide, in fact it is the leading cause of death for this age group. The suicide rate among young Aboriginal people is also three times higher than for the rest of the population.

Not all of them, of course, commit suicide in prison. There are a multitude of factors that explain this: poverty, problems accessing housing, employment, and proper health services. In short, their lives are infinitely more difficult than for other Australians, and this inability to envisage a better future unfortunately pushes far too many to commit the irreparable. The phenomenon is increasing, since in 2022, 212 Aborigines committed suicide, twice as many as 15 years ago and at this stage, nothing, or almost nothing, is being done by the government to stop this problem.