While there is much to be said for lifting the roof on Canberra's troubled Bimberi Youth Justice Centre to let the sun shine in, inquiries alone won't fix the problems.
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If it were that simple the facility, now the subject of another three separate probes after Monday night's riot which saw seven staff members injured, would have achieved world's best practice status years ago.
The events are now being investigated by WorkSafe ACT, ACT Policing, and by Peter Muir, a former director general of the Department of Juvenile Justice in NSW.
It is possible that one or more detainees could be charged as a result of the ongoing police investigation.
The Muir inquiry was requested by ACT Youth and Health Minister, Rachel Stephen Smith. It follows the release of the report of another inquiry in March.
The ACT Human Rights Commissioner, in conjunction with the ACT Disability and Community Services Commissioner, had initiated a wide-ranging investigation after a series of reports in The Canberra Times in 2017. These alleged serious incidents of violence and abuse had occurred at Bimberi between 2011 and 2017.
Specific claims included that troubled children had been abused and humiliated by a small number of "bad apple" staff and that staff, in their turn, had been threatened and attacked by volatile detainees.
It was also alleged there had been "sickening" acts of violence, that guards had encouraged children to settle disputes through organised fights, that detainees had been supplied with drugs and alcohol, and that indigenous and immigrant detainees were goaded with racist abuse.
Bimberi has had a chequered history since it was opened to replace scandal-plagued Quamby Centre in 2008. A 2011 Human Rights Commission review was highly critical of day-to-day operations and made 200 separate recommendations.
In 2016 three youth workers were hospitalised after a violent incident.
In 2016 three youth workers were hospitalised after a violent incident involving three detainees.
The most recent ACT Human Rights Commission inquiry made 15 separate recommendations, some of which appear to speak directly to concerns raised in the wake of Monday night's violence.
One example of this is the call by Bimberi workers for more training and clearer direction on how to restrain young people when violence breaks out. This closely corresponds to the recommendation the Community Services Directorate "review the use of force practice guidelines and training materials provided at Bimberi to ensure staff are being given clear, consistent, and practical guidance on the safest techniques for restraint when the use of force is unavoidable".
The HRC review also recommended "the Children and Young People Act should be amended to specify that force may only be used where necessary to prevent an imminent risk of a detainee inflicting self-harm, harming others, or seriously damaging property".
It is not known what steps, if any, CSD has taken to implement either these or the other 13 recommendations.
We do know that 100 additional CCTV cameras are to be installed and that emergency services would be able to access the live feed when incidents do occur.
While the latest round of inquiries and investigations won't do any harm and may even do some good, the fact is they come on the back of a raft of earlier investigations.
Surely there is enough information already to hand to allow informed decisions to be taken to make Bimberi a safer place for both its staff and for the detainees.
