Coroner calls for urgent closure of youth jail

THE troubled youth wing of an adult prison where an Indigenous teenager fatally self-harmed should be closed “as a matter of urgency”, a coroner has told a court.

More funding should be provided for training corrections staff and the prison watchdog’s powers should be beefed up, with coroner Philip Urquhart also calling for the justice department to be stripped of its role overseeing young people.

Cleveland Dodd was found unresponsive inside a cell in Unit 18, a youth wing of the high-security adult facility Casuarina Prison in Perth, in the early hours of October…