Racism is at the heart of mistreatment of indigenous youth in detention in Darwin, and the NT government is "entirely dismissive" of their rights, a human rights lawyer says.
The ABC's Four Corners program has obtained footage of teens being tear-gassed in detention during a disturbance in August 2014.
A report by the NT children's commissioner found that several boys had been kept in isolation for almost 24 hours a day for prolonged periods in hot cells with no running water or access to school materials.
Professor George Newhouse, principal solicitor at the National Justice Project, on Monday called for a total overhaul of the youth justice system.
"The government needs to address the social, health, educational, and other disadvantages that these young people suffer and divert them from youth detention ... these are children and they deserve a future," he told AAP.
"If you were seeing non-indigenous children being treated this way, there would be a swift response from the community and the government to the problem, but when it's mostly indigenous ... the government seems to be entirely dismissive of them."
Since 2014 the government has moved juvenile detainees into the former maximum security wing of the old adult prison and extended staff training from four days to eight weeks.
"Nobody wants to see our young people in jail, but the fact remains there are some young people who cause crime in our streets, they smash up cars, they break into houses, they assault people ... so unfortunately, we have to lock juveniles up," NT Chief Minister Adam Giles told reporters.
A still from the footage obtained by Four Corners. Source: ABC Australia
The NT has the highest rate of youth detention in Australia, and 95 per cent of detainees are Aboriginal.
Leaked footage shows youths tear gassed and fire hosed at detention facility
Six boys held in isolation cells were allegedly tear gassed at a juvenile detention centre in the Northern Territory.
The ABC program Four Corners has obtained footage of the 2014 incident at Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin to be broadcast on Monday night, showing boys were locked in their cells at the time.
The boys can be seen looking frightened and trying to cover themselves from the tear gas.
After being sprayed they were then taken outside, shackled and doused with a fire hose.
One boy is heard saying: “I can’t breathe!”
Northern Territory authorities had described the incident as a riot and claimed multiple boys had escaped their cells.
The NT government had praised the guards at the time for acting appropriately.
"I congratulate again, and place my support behind, the staff who made this decision. The staff worked hard, Fluffy the Alsatian worked hard and, as far as we are concerned, it was a problem that was solved quickly," NT
Corrections Minister John Elferink told Parliament.
The Former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma said there is cause for concern.
"Last year when the news broke it was portrayed very differently to what we see on the vision,” he said.
“To think that in today's modern society that we have centres like the Don Dale centre, where people get put into solitary confinement, and that they treat them the way they've been treated... it’s very concerning."
Some of the traumatised boys have spoken about enduring horrific conditions and punishments, with reports children as young as 13-years-old had been put into solitary confinement while living at the facility.
A group of lawyers helped blow the whistle on the Don Dale facility when they toured it in 2014.
The CEO of the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) Priscilla Collins was among the group who noticed boys were being kept in isolation, and described the scene as “shocking.”
"They took us into this room, brick walls, no light, no air conditioning. You could hear sounds, and I asked are there people in there? They said ‘yeah they're the youths,’" she recalled.
When asked about the teargassing incident, she said they found the news disturbing and that it pointed to a lack of appropriate training for the staff.
“I understand the situation at that time was not a good one, but surely the prison officers based at juvenile detention centres are specifically trained to deal with youth and they should have handed that incident in a better way.”
NAAJA says that poor facilities are the result of a lack of funding for the NT Department of Corrections, and a lack of willingness by the government to increase funding.
“It [Done Dale] is not even set up as a detention centre. There were fans on pedestals, extension cords all over the place…I was like, I have no idea what you think a detention centre looks like but this isn’t it,” she said.
“70 per cent of those youths are on remand, and haven't actually been sentenced to the detention centre."
Mr Calma, who has championed Indigenous causes for more than 40 years, said the solution to reducing the prison population lies in working with the community to make sure crimes aren’t committed in the first place.
“Unfortunately around the nation we don't see enough effort being put into the prisons to prepare them for their release," said Mr Calma.
“By and large we know that anyone who goes into youth detention there’s a high proportion of those that will go on to adult incarceration.”
“The federal government has actually had a senate inquiry into justice reinvestment, and have come up with a whole list of recommendations on that program. But what we’re seeing is that report sitting on the book shelves and it hasn’t been implemented,” said Mr Calma.
The Northern Territory government and the Opposition said they wouldn’t comment today, rather reserving their statements until after the ABC airs Four Corners tonight.
