A systemic thread of reported institutional child abuse within
Youth Justice Centres, in the form of allegedly improper strip
searches upon detainees, has once again been met with inquiry.
The NSW Ombudsman decided it was "unreasonable",
"oppressive" and "wrong",1 that
three youth detainees of Frank Baxter Juvenile Justice Centre be
strip searched as they were in 2019.
On 24 November 2019, three detainees of Frank Baxter were fully
strip searched naked in front of CCTV cameras by Corrective
Services officers, who were called in by the Youth Justice Centre
to respond to an incident where the detainees refused to climb down
from the roof.
The report was heralded into NSW Parliament in June 2021,
following investigations into the conduct of Frank Baxter, and
their duty of care respectively owed to juvenile detainees when
conducting strip searches.
