Australian Human Rights Commission Current issues and good practices in prison management, 16 November 2023 86. In October 2022, the Western Australian Inspector of Custodial Services reviewed the use of confinement and management regimes in that State’s prisons and found, with respect to separate confinement, that: a. prisoners in separate confinement are provided with few opportunities to engage meaningfully with other people;136 b. the yards available to prisoners in confinement are not always conducive to providing access to open air and exercise;137 c. prisoners placed in separate confinement are provided with very few cell-based activities and stimulation;138 and d. prisoners are often held in their cells for 20–23 hours a day with little sensory or mental stimulation.139 87. In October 2022, the New South Wales Ombudsman revealed it had received 1,876 separation and segregation notifications (exceeding 24 hours) in youth detention for the 2021–2022 period, a 7% and 46% increase from the 20202021 period.140 These numbers did however fall over the 2022-2023 period to 1,712 in part due to relaxing of COVID-19 pandemic separation requirements.141 88. In February 2023, the Queensland Children’s Court published evidence that a 13-year-old boy with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, was subjected to solitary confinement.142 Of the last 87 days he spent in detention at the Cleveland Youth Detention Centre, he had been confined to his cell for 20 hours or more per day for 78 days. For ten of those days, he was confined to his cell for 24 hours per day. 89. In July 2023, the Western Australian Supreme Court ruled that three detainees were unlawfully subjected to ‘solitary confinement [in their cells] on a frequent basis’ at the Banksia Hill Youth Detention Centre and Unit 18 of Casuarina Prison.143 Justice Tottle noted in his judgement that The causes of the systemic failure are an endemic shortage of suitably qualified staff, inadequate infrastructure and a consequent inability to manage detainees with difficult behavioural problems.144 90. In July 2023, the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Tasmania) urged the Tasmanian National Preventive Mechanism to consider the use of isolation practices, including the use of lockdowns and restrictive practices for operational reasons at Ashley Youth Detention Centre, as a ‘matter of priority’, emphasising that ‘[c]hildren’s rights are repeatedly trumped due to chronic staff shortages and/or workplace health and safety considerations’.145 19