Darwin’s Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre was where a 15-years-old boy committed suicide in the middle of a federal parliamentary controversy over mandatory sentencing of Aboriginal children in 2000, former Greens leader Bob Brown said today.
The boy was found hanged at the centre on day 23 of his 28 day sentence for stealing biscuits, apparently not knowing he was due for release within 5 days.
At the time, to avoid the House debating a Senate bill to prohibit mandatory sentencing of juveniles in the Northern Territory, Prime Minister John Howard struck a controversial deal to give the Burke LNP Government $20 millions over 4 years to end mandatory sentencing.
However the deal left the NT police with discretionary powers as to what constituted a minor offence and therefore who would avoid incarceration. ‘The Howard formula failed’, Bob Brown said in Hobart this morning.
A Royal Commission into the horrific events at the Don Dale Centre should trigger Federal intervention including, if necessary, taking direct responsibility for the juvenile justice system in the Territory, Brown said.
Steven Chaffer, The Bob Brown Foundation
