The coroner investigating the death of Indigenous teenager Cleveland Dodd has called for the youth detention unit he was held in to be closed and investigated, after finding that his death was caused by longstanding failures in the justice system.

Cleveland was found unresponsive inside a cell in the trouble-plagued Unit 18, a youth wing of the Casuarina high-security adult prison, south of Perth, in the early hours of 12 October 2023.

The 16-year-old was taken to hospital in a critical condition and died about a week later, becoming the first juvenile to die in a West Australian detention facility.

Coroner Phil Urquhart said the unit should be closed as a matter of urgency, and a special inquiry with more powers than the coroner’s court should be convened into how it came to be estab

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