The Alice Springs Youth Detention Centre formerly known as Alice Springs Juvenile Holding Centre is an Australian medium to maximum security prison for juvenile males and females located in Alice Springs,

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

, Australia.

Facilities

The centre was designed for use as a short-term holding and remand centre for up to four days, and could originally hold up to ten juveniles of either sex; longer remand periods or sentences were moved to

Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre The Don Dale Youth Detention Centre is a facility for juvenile detention in the Northern Territory, Australia, located in Berrimah, east of Darwin. It is a detention centre for male and female juvenile delinquents. The facility is named after D ...

in Darwin. Expansion and re-configuration of the facility allowed for longer-term detention of up to 18 detainees: a maximum of 15 males in eight rooms, and up to three females in three rooms in a separate wing. However by 2018 there was overcrowding at the facility, with 24 youths held there. Improvements made after the Royal Commission into Juvenile Detention had been made, including provision for school lessons; however in June 2019 it was found that the Centre was failing to provide nearly half of the classes.

''Four Corners'' program

Graphic footage of repeated abuse of children at

and in Alice Springs was featured in ABC's ''Four Corners'' episode "

Australia's Shame "Australia's Shame" is the title of an episode of the long-running Australian investigative journalism and current affairs program ''Four Corners'', which aired on the ABC on 25 July 2016. Written by ABC journalists Caro Meldrum-Hanna and Elis ...

", which aired on 25 July 2016. The program also showed a 17-year-old boy shackled and hooded in a chair in Alice Springs (adult) correctional center. The

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, commonly known as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) or the United Nations Human Rights Office, is a department of the Secretariat of the United Nati ...

said it was "shocked" at the "appalling treatment" of the detainees, which violates the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment, to which Australia is party. Following national outrage,

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

Malcolm Turnbull Malcolm Bligh Turnbull (born 24 October 1954) is an Australian former politician and businessman who served as the 29th prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. Turnbull grad ...

announced a

Royal Commission into Juvenile Detention in the Northern Territory The Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory is a Royal Commission established in 2016 by the Australian Government pursuant to the '' Royal Commissions Act 1902'' to inquire into and report upon ...

John Elferink Johan Wessel Elferink (born 24 September 1965) is an Australian politician. He is a former member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly for the Country Liberal Party. Early life Elferink was born in the Netherlands and moved to Austr ...

was sacked as Corrections Minister the morning after the program aired. The corrections and justice portfolios were taken on by Northern Territory Chief Minister

Adam Giles Adam Graham Giles (born 10 April 1973) is an Australian former politician and former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory (2013–2016) as well as the former leader of the Country Liberal Party (CLP) in the unicameral Northern Territory P ...

. Use of

restraint chair A restraint chair is a type of physical restraint that is used to force an individual to remain seated in one place to prevent injury and harm to themselves or others. They are commonly used in prisons for violent inmates and hospitals for out of ...

s and spithoods were then suspended.

References

External links

Official webpage
Prisons in the Northern Territory Juvenile detention centres in Australia Maximum security prisons in the Northern Territory Buildings and structures in Alice Springs {{NorthernTerritory-stub

Facilities

''Four Corners'' program

See also

References

External links