Best Practice is Overrated

The Ashely Home for Boys renamed the Ashley Youth Detention Centre in 1999 will be closed in three years' time. On the face of it, the decision has been welcomed by the community.

The Boys' Reformatory was opened at the Cascades Female Factory in 1869 as an alternative for the homeless and those who had broken the law. Soon followed the Boys' Training School opened at South Hobart in 1869 which moved to New Town in 1884.

In 1922 the program was on the move again and this time, much further North.

Inmates, held on remand or serving custodial sentences, have been detained at the facility on the outskirts of Deloraine since that time with questions asked and complaints made for just about as long. But one shining light has been the Ashley School, a Department of Education facility, since opening in 2003, with restorative justice principles underpinning the learning program.

Perhaps that is a solid steer for the future.

No one should be naive enough to believe that some young people between the ages of 12 and 19 are incapable of making criminal decisions that deserve consequence. Yet, research tells us that youth incarceration simplistically delivers one certainty - an undergraduate transition program to adult prison.

Premier Peter Gutwein deserves credit for making the decision, following revelations heard during Budget Estimates and during a private meeting. Back at the start of the century Attorney General Judy Jackson made a very similar decision. Willow Court was closed in 2000, and The Royal Derwent Hospital soon followed ceasing operation 2001. They were once described as insane or mental asylums or even further back, lunatic asylums.

Modelled on a best practice H-Block style medical facility imported from England, Willow Court and the Royal Derwent played a significant role in the lives of patients, desperate families, nurses, carers, and the New Norfolk community who still interact with those who worked and lived at the site.

Most of the psychiatric nurses (mental health nurses) were doing right, providing care when others could not, and assisting families to make the best of challenging situations. It was not the fault of the employees that the facilities were no longer deemed appropriate by the then state government.

I distinctly remember arriving at Willow Court for the first time in 2011 as Heritage Minister. The overwhelming smell of animal urine permeated the derelict and vandalised facilities. As minister, I was there to assess the potential of the site. It was pitched to me by the local council and the community as "potential for development", but, at that time, I could not see past the past. It was haunting and sad and tragic and frightening.

The walls were filthy and tagged with graffiti, the windows shattered, and the bars exposed. The doors were the densest I had ever seen. Some were even padded on the inside. The small windows in the dense doors were made from thick glass. There was a gouge in one of the glass panes in one of the solid wooden doors, deep and frightening - it was said to have been there a long time.

There were rats nests in the corner of rooms, cardboard and makeshift fireplaces, and utter disrepair. The fence surrounding the facility outside the imposing concrete walls probably cost as much as the site was worth at the time. And while the hospital no longer kept people in, the perimeter fence no longer kept people out.

The most terrifying aspect of Willow Court was the shower block. With shower rose inlets clearly visible, but long since nicked, the semi-private metre high walls were confronting. Covering half the patient's body when showering to protect them from themselves, it was agonising to imagine the scene just a decade prior to my visit.

The challenge for any government is to implement and explain therapeutic jurisprudence or far more simply, problem-solving justice initiatives to unsympathetic communities. A tough on crime stance is a proven vote winner, relied upon to garner support when others are accused of being soft on crime and incapable of removing crime from our streets.

Therefore, this decision is not devoid of politics.

The much-needed Northern Prison, mooted for Westbury, has been deeply divisive and unpopular. Closing Ashley Youth Justice Centre and revamping the site to create an adult facility fixes two problems at once - the first a morally correct and best practice decision, and the second placating a mobilised group who will never agree with the state government's plan for infrastructure designed to incarcerate.

Judy Jackson and Peter Gutwein and those employees who attempted to make a difference will be long remembered for doing right.