After last night’s deeply disturbing episode of 4 Corners, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced a royal commission into the treatment of kids in juvenile detention in the Northern Territory.
Turnbull said that like everyone else, he was “deeply shocked and appalled” by the abuse detailed by the programme, which exposed horrifying mistreatment of children at the Don Dale detention facility in Berrimah, which is just outside Darwin. The documented abuses were happening as recently as 2014.
“Like all Australians, we are shocked by the report, by that evidence on Four Corners lay night. We have moved swiftly to get to the bottom of it,” Turnbull said.
“We need to get all the facts out as quickly as we can. We need to expose the cultural problems, the administrative problems.”
A royal commission was decided as necessary after consultation with Attorney General George Brandis and NT Chief Minister Adam Giles because previous inquiries into the Don Dale facility had not turned up evidence of abuse.
A royal commission compels testimony and evidence from witnesses that an inquiry may not uncover. Turnbull told ABC AM that his government “does not resile from its tough approach” to juvenile offenders.
As some have pointed out, many of the individual elements of the abuse have been known and reported on since at least last year. And nobody was under any illusion about just how fucked the NT prison system is – especially for Indigenous Australians. Goes to show how actually seeing this stuff can force the hand of those in charge.
We’ll keep you posted as more info emerges.
Source: ABC.
Photo: ABC.
