Each youth in detention costs taxpayers about $1 million per year, a former prison watchdog has told an inquest while calling for a shake-up of a youth justice system at "crisis point".
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An inquest for Indigenous teenager Cleveland Dodd, who fatally self-harmed in custody, is continuing in Perth.
The 16-year-old was found unresponsive inside a cell in a troubled youth wing of a high-security adult prison in the early hours of October 12, 2023.
He was taken from Casuarina Prison to hospital in a critical condition and died about one week later, causing outrage and grief in the community.
Former inspector of custodial services, Neil Morgan, said Western Australia's youth detention facilities had been at a crisis point for more than a decade and it was time for a different approach.
He said an organisational "shake-up" was required and the justice department needed to be split up because it had grown too large.
"The government needs to bite the bullet and say this is a crisis point," he told the coroner on Monday.
He said a separate youth justice department was required.
Professor Morgan said it previously cost about $500,000 per year for each youth in detention but the figure was likely to have increased to about $1 million annually.
"We need to sit back and say 'how do we best spend that money?' and that is probably a job that is best done by a standalone, small, focused department," he said.
Prof Morgan also called for smaller regional youth detention centres and for detainees to be separated by age so children were not mixed with older teens in facilities.
He said the Kimberley was as far from Perth as Russia was from the UK.
"It's probably not much different in terms of culture," he said.
"Why do we think that will work?"
Prof Morgan also raised concerns over Casuarina Prison's Unit 18, where Cleveland Dodd was held, which was set up as a temporary facility for young detainees.
"There has to be a closure date," he said.
The unit was supposed to be open for one year from July 2022 after a riot at Banksia Hill damaged that facility.
The inquest continues on Tuesday, when the current inspector of custodial services, Eamon Ryan, is scheduled to give evidence.
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Australian Associated Press
