Western Australia's prisons minister has rejected criticism of the WA's youth detention system from the state's peak legal body.
The Law Society of WA wrote to Minister Paul Papalia and Premier Roger Cook urging the closure of the notorious Unit 18 and other reforms to the child justice system.
The letter was sent after the recent death of a 17-year-old boy at Banksia Hill which came within less than a year of the first recorded death in WA's youth detention system, that of 16-year-old Yamatji boy Cleveland Dodd.
Indigenous children are severely over-represented in WA's child prisons.
Papalia told the ABC the Law Society was wrong about the poor conditions in WA's youth detention facilities and that the justice department is constantly reviewing its practices.
"Every effort is being made to make it better. We do that on a daily basis," he said.
"We have an excellent Commissioner working, leading a good team to make things better."
Greg McIntyre SC, chair of the Law Society's Indigenous Legal Issues Committee and Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Committee, told National Indigenous Times the Law Society accepts there has been some recent work done to improve conditions, but "obviously that has not met the standards we think are necessary".
"They have not eliminated all ligature points in all prison cells across WA. This is something that was recommended over 30 years ago by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody," he said.
"It is distressing we are seeing young people commit suicide in juvenile detention. That should not be possible in our modern state. We think there needs to be a consideration of how things must change further to eliminate that possibility."
Mr McIntyre noted that at a national level the Law Council has advocated that the age of criminal responsibility be raised to 14.
"It is only a small number of children involved (under the age of 14) but they should not be in detention at all in any state and territory in the Commonwealth," he said.
"The emphasis should be on creating institutions that are educational institutions rather than just locking children up."
He said that while the recent report by the WA Children's Commissioner noted there had been some improvements in youth detention the last several weeks; the measures did not prevent "this tragic event two Thursdays ago".
"There needs to be a recalibration; looking at dealing with children in a very different way. They don't need to lock children up to protect the community, it does not work that way, if anything it means children are re-offending, having been treated that way," Mr McIntyre said.
"There needs to be more emphasis on community solutions, reinvesting in preventative efforts, so that these children are not in detention.
"In most European countries the age of criminal responsibility is 14 and their institutions tend towards being educational rather than involving incarceration… In Scotland children under 18 are no longer incarcerated. If it can be done there it can be done here."
