Malak House, 1979?, courtesy of Northern Territory Library.
Details
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.
1979 - 1987 Malak House Remand and Assessment Centre
1987 - 1991 Malak House Juvenile Detention Centre
1991 - Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre
Sources used to compile this entry: Parliamentary Record: Part 1 - Debates, Northern Territory Legislative Assemby, 24 November 1981. Also available at https://hdl.handle.net/10070/697154; Northern Territory Government Department of Correctional Services Annual Report 1991-1992, NT Government, Department of Correctional Services, Northern Territory Government, Darwin, 1992; Northern Territory Government Department of Correctional Services Annual Report 1993-1994, NT Government, Department of Correctional Services, Northern Territory Government, Darwin, 1994; Department of Justice, Northern Territory Government, Review of the Northern Territory Youth Justice system, Darwin, September 2011, https://hdl.handle.net/10070/614625; Malak House [Image], Date: 1979?; Malak House - news articles [Document], Date: 1989; Richardson, Brian E, Northern Territory Task Force on Juvenile Crime, Darwin, 1985; File E171 1975/385 Construction of Juvenile Training Centre - Malak, NAA Darwin.
Prepared by: Karen George and Gary George
Created: 4 February 2013, Last modified: 11 September 2020
Last updated: 4 August 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/nt/biogs/YE00278b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
