There has been some valuable improvement across several areas at Banksia Hill and Unit 18 since our 2023 inspection. The focus on increasing custodial staffing has reduced young people’s time locked in cell and increased their access to a variety of much-needed support services. These ‘green shoots’ are beginning to produce better outcomes for young people in custody.
However, we expected progress in some areas to be further along, and we are very concerned the population numbers we are observing are artificially low. As such, if more progress is not made, more urgently, any considerable increase in the number of young people in custody, puts the positive ‘green shoots’ at risk. Similarly, another large-scale critical incident, or worse – another death in custody – may mean a loss of staff and the potential for spiralling deeply back into the crises we have observed over recent years.