Australian Human Rights Commission Report title October 2022 Recommendation 14: Governments ensure that officials and staff in the criminal justice and law enforcement systems at all levels receive sufficient training to ensure the application of culturally appropriate, trauma-informed and gender responsive approaches. Recommendation 15: All Australian governments commit to the development and implementation of a national anti-racism framework to ensure targeted action to identify and address the scourge of racism, including systemic and institutional racism withing government agencies including within the criminal justice system. 5.2 Youth justice system 80. The Commission continues to express concern about the treatment of children in youth detention centres. Despite legislation in most states and territories prohibiting the use of isolation and limiting the use of force to certain circumstances, allegations of mistreatment of children and young people in youth detention have arisen in several jurisdictions over recent years.88 81. Reporting in 2017, the Royal Commission and Board of Inquiry into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory (Northern Territory Royal Commission) found that children and young people detained in the Northern Territory youth justice system were frequently subjected to verbal abuse and racist remarks; deliberately denied access to basic human needs, including water and food; restrained in ways that were potentially dangerous; and subjected to isolation excessively and punitively.89 82. Key recommendations of the Royal Commission remain unimplemented. The Northern Territory Government pledged to close and replace the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in 2018, in line with recommendations to better protect the safety and rights of children in the facility.90 However, the centre remains open. There were 54 incidents of self-harm between July 2021 and December 2021 inside Don Dale, ‘a more than 500% increase from the corresponding period in 2020, when there were eight instances of selfharm reported’.91 83. Spit hoods are still used on children in police custody in some jurisdictions, including in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.92 The Commission welcomes the recent commitment by Queensland police to desist using spit hoods in police watch houses.93 In 2021, South Australia became the first state or territory in Australia to ban spit hoods in all contexts by law. 94 The use of spit hoods should be similarly banned Australia-wide. 19