Malak House Remand and Assessment Centre

Malak House Remand and Assessment Centre opened at Malak, a suburb of Darwin, in 1979. It operated as a remand and assessment home for young offenders between the ages of 10 and 17 years. In 1987 the name of the Centre changed to Malak House Juvenile Detention Centre.

Malak House Remand and Assessment Centre was officially opened on the corner of Malak Crescent and Patterson Street, Malak, in November 1979. It operated a remand and assessment home for young offenders, taking in children from the age of 10 to 17 years who had committed offences. Prior to 1979 young offenders had been placed at a government remand home at Chapman Road, Rapid Creek. Malak House was designed as a minimum security centre that provided short-term detention and psychological assessment for these children. It was run by a live-in couple who were supported by youth workers and general domestic staff, as well as a psychologist who was based at the centre.

Communication with a former resident who contacted the Find & Connect web resource in September 2020 suggests that Malak House also received children who had not committed offences but required short-term accommodation before being placed in foster care or family group homes. In 1981 it was described in parliamentary debate as “one of those institutions that are not quite one thing or another. It is not a detention centre and it is not a true open, home-style rehabilitation centre.”

Records suggest that Malak House operated as a remand centre until 1987 when it was approved as a juvenile detention centre, the second of this type of institution in the Northern Territory after Giles House in Alice Springs. That year its name was changed to Malak House Juvenile Detention Centre.