Mum of inmate says son worse after Tasmanian youth prison experience

A woman who had hoped her wayward son would be deterred from a life of crime by a stint in Tasmania's Ashley Youth Detention Centre says he was traumatised by the experience.

The harrowing accounts of abuse from inmates of Ashley featured heavily in a 2023 inquiry, with some former inmates being awarded a $75 million class action settlement in 2024.

A commitment to close Ashley has been pushed back until at least 2028.

Anita, whose name has been changed for legal reasons, thought Ashley Youth Detention Centre would help her son.

"The hope was he would go there, they would help him, he would realise his mistakes, and he would come home and go back to school and be who he was going to be."

WARNING: This story contains discussion of suicide

But from the first time he came home, Anita said he wasn't right.

"He was jumpy, you couldn't walk up behind him, he was just not right," she said.

He'd only spent a few months in Tasmania's only custodial facility for young offenders and was 13 years old at the time.

From then on, she said, he just kept going back to Ashley (AYDC).

"He was on bail; he just kept not being home when they came around. He was a kid, he was out," she said.

It was years later, when watching a 60 Minutes episode on AYDC, that her son revealed he was abused in the centre.

Anita said her son had spent years advocating and speaking out, but what he went through had caught up with him.

"We nearly lost him last week," she said.

"He needs help, he needs serious long-term help."

Ashley Youth Detention Centre was supposed to have closed two years ago this December. It's possibly going to remain open until mid 2028.

Known as a "prison for kids" or Risdon Prison's kindergarten, given its high graduation rate, AYDC's horrific history has made national headlines in the past.

A 2022 Commission of Inquiry into government responses to child sexual abuse in institutional settings revealed a past and present of sexual and physical abuse.

It is a place where children would often come out more traumatised than when they entered, the commissioners found.

That inquiry recommended that AYDC be closed as soon as possible and a new, more therapeutic model built.

Former judge Robert Benjamin was one of the commissioners on the inquiry and is now tasked with monitoring the government's implementation of the 191 recommendations.

His recent annual report noted that plans to close AYDC have been delayed once more because they are dependent on the progression of the new building.

"The centre remains a setting that is not conducive to meeting the individual needs of children and young people," he said.

Mr Benjamin said that while there had been recent improvements at AYDC, more needed to be done.

"It is well known that detention facilities generally have an associated increased risk of child sexual abuse," he said.

"The department has taken steps to minimise this risk at AYDC to, as best it can, help ensure children and young people are safer.

"However, in my view, AYDC is not fit for purpose and the best way to minimise the risk of child sexual abuse occurring in youth detention is through the development of the new youth justice facility."

The commission made 39 recommendations that related to youth justice.

Just over a quarter have been completed. 41 per cent have been substantially progressed and a third are in progress.

Along with the plans for a new youth justice facility, the government developed a new draft model of care.

If implemented properly, Mr Benjamin believes it could be "nation leading".

Other reforms are about keeping children out of detention.

"I consider that other reforms will support the principle of using detention as a measure of last resort and are crucial to the overall success of youth justice reform," he said.

Anita is adamant she wants to see AYDC closed.

Her son, she says, is "stuck" in his youth, unable to move on from his time at Ashley — a boy who she describes as once having a lot of potential.

"He is an extraordinary young man," she said.

"He could've been anything he wanted to be at the time.

The Tasmanian government has been contacted for comment.