Don Dale Detention Centre may continue operating as an adult prison, NT Chief Minister says

From tough talk on Don Dale just two months ago, I want to wipe out of our lexicon and our language in the NT the word Don Dale to flagging a second life for the notorious facility where the young people are. Now that facility actually is in reasonably good nick. We’re looking at what we can use that facility for. A fortnight. After the most recent of many riots at the Darwin Detention Centre, Eva Lawler says the jail could still be used once children are transferred out, whether that becomes. A women’s prison, or whether it’s used for something else, that that’s some work that Matt commissioner Matt Varney is actually literally doing now. Yndale’s closure was recommended by a 2017 royal Commission into the protection and detention of children in the NT. Those advocating for the jail to be flattened are accusing the chief minister of a backflip. She’s contradicting herself. In February she said she was going to demolish Berma prison, which is typical of political they not telling the truth. I never have told the truth. And they never treated our children with the truth to a point. They’ve placed them in Don Dale, a rundown men’s prison. That needs to be demolished, Corrections telling the ABC its commissioner is considering options for the facility’s future. It’s deceitful. It’s dishonest. Berrima should be demolished, they shouldn’t have kids in there, and they shouldn’t even be considering putting women in there. Any conversion of Don Dale into an adult Correctional Facility is contingent on the opening of a new therapeutic youth justice centre on Darwin’s outskirts. That new facility has been delayed several times, but for now the government says it could open by the middle of this year.