An Aboriginal teenager has committed suicide at a youth prison in the Australian state of Western Australia (WA).
State authorities said the 17-year-old had been in custody for only two days before being found unresponsive in his cell on Thursday and beyond help.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the most incarcerated people on the planet and also have much higher death rates in custody than non-Indigenous Australians.
Deaths in juvenile detention centers are rare, although this is the second in the state in less than a year.
“This is an absolutely horrific event,” Western Australian Premier Roger Cook said as he announced the inquiry on Friday morning.
“There has clearly been a failure and we will undertake the important task of finding out what happened.”
The teenager – who has not been identified – arrived at the centre on Tuesday in an intoxicated state and was placed in a special monitoring room due to concerns for his health.
However, Corrections Commissioner Brad Royce told reporters there was no indication of mental distress.
The boy spent most of Thursday afternoon outside his cell and was checked on by staff ten times in the hours before his death.
The incident comes ten months after 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd became the first juvenile to die at a youth detention centre in Western Australia.
This year, investigators cleared the prison officer of serious misconduct, but found significant failures that led to his death.
Mr Royce said he had reviewed the prison footage on Thursday and was satisfied the staff response in this case was “appropriate”.
Cook said conditions in youth prisons across the state have improved since Cleveland’s death.
“I am more confident than ever about how we manage our juvenile detention facilities,” he said.
Australia is under international pressure to raise the age of criminal responsibility – in some states it is as low as 10, disproportionately affecting indigenous children.
Conditions in youth detention centres have also drawn international criticism, including from the United Nations, which has said they violate international law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“This was a preventable death. How many times did the Western Australian government need to be warned, by how many experts, about the dangers in their youth detention centres?” Amnesty International’s Kacey Teerman said in a statement.
Responding to questions about long-standing concerns, Correctional Services Minister Paul Papalia said on Thursday that “there is no need for clear, immediate and systemic change”.
“We are responding with everything we can and everything necessary.”
If this story has raised a concern for you, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14, or if you are an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, you can call the 13-yarn Hotline on 13 92 76.
