The grandmother of an Aboriginal boy who has served several stints in Darwin's Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre is among a group of protesters calling for the facility's immediate closure.
The group meets at the centre every Friday afternoon to call on the Northern Territory Government to make good on its four-year-old promise to close the facility.
Images from inside Don Dale shocked the nation in 2006, revealing the use of chair restraints and spit hoods.
It sparked a Royal Commission which recommended the centre, formerly Berrimah Prison and home to the Territory's most hardened adult prisoners, be closed down permanently.
Donna Hunter's 11-year-old grandson has recently been in and out of Don Dale and is pleading for its closure.
"This ain’t no place for a damaged child. Not at all, he needs help, he needs help and having him here in Don Dale is not the answer," she said.
Darwin barrister John Lawrence SC said the treatment of Ms Hunter's grandson's while inside Don Dale was inhumane.
Protesters are calling for Don Dale to be shut down immediately Source: NITV
"He needs care, he needs treatment and he needs professional help," he said.
"He's been put in a derelict male adult's cell and when I saw him in there last he was being shut down in there at 6.30pm and he was let out at eight o'clock the next morning and because of staff shortages he was only allowed out three times during the day - one hour apiece.
"This is how we treat Aboriginal kids in the Northern Territory in 2022."
The Territory Government has spent $2.5 million refurbishing the current Don Dale site, while a new $55 million juvenile justice facility is being in Darwin's rural area, alongside the existing adult prison. The new centre is due for completion mid-year.
Meanwhile, the number of young people in detention has reached levels not seen since the Royal Commission, a result of tough new youth bails laws.
"There's children being kept in a condemned adult male jail [Don Dale] and that shouldn't happen anywhere. As far as I know it isn't happening anywhere in the western world," John Lawrence said.
"The Royal Commission saw it, discovered the worst and said, first and foremost, the children have to be taken out of that jail and it has to be shut down and they need an appropriate, proper, decent and humane facility for juvenile offenders and that needs to happen."
A major protest is being planned at Don Dale on January 26.
