Kaleb and Bailee

‘[Kaleb] is just one of the cases where a lot of things went wrong, both personally, situationally, systematically. He just found all the cracks and he slips through them.’

Kaleb was 12 when he first went to prison.

Bailee, his mum, told the Royal Commission that Kaleb loves boxing and when he’s drunk he gets into fights. By the time he was 20 he had a ’30-page rap sheet for assaults’.

Kaleb’s been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, social phobia, Asperger’s, borderline personality disorder, oppositional defiance disorder, anxiety, depression and alcohol dependence. ‘Now, you would hope that all these diagnoses helped to help him,’ Bailee said. ‘But it hasn’t.’

The first time Kaleb went to detention he was scared. Police put him in the back of a van and he didn’t know what was happening. ‘There’s still trauma every time he’s in a van,’ Bailee said. In detention Kaleb told staff he was so depressed ‘there was no use in living’. Staff trialled various medications but nothing worked.

At 14 Kaleb went to a rehabilitation facility in the country. They did not provide counselling or proper support, and Kaleb ended up sniffing paint. Bailee spoke to the manager who told her ‘they didn’t have time for the likes of [Kaleb]’. Staff told Kaleb they were going to take him to McDonalds, but took him to the police. Kaleb ended up back in a correctional centre.

At 16, Kaleb was put in solitary confinement for three weeks, which was illegal. ‘When I got him out of prison after that, he was truly never the same. Something changed.’

Kaleb would punch the prison walls and injure himself. Bailee tried to help him see a psychiatrist but prison staff told her ‘he will have to wait his turn’. When Kaleb asked for help staff taunted him saying, ‘What's wrong with you? Are you a retard? Are you a moron?’

At 19, people filmed Kaleb without his consent for a program. He looked unwell, all his teeth broken. He was very distressed when he saw the film.

As an adult, Kaleb spent three days in solitary confinement in his undies, using a mattress for warmth.

Rehabilitation hasn’t worked – Kaleb continues to drink and use marijuana.

Bailee says he’s been ‘spat out of the system’ and it is up to her to support him. She left her job to be his full-time carer and he hasn’t been back to prison in 10 years. But it’s been difficult.

Bailee thought the NDIS was going to be great. People were positive saying ‘we're going to do this, and we're going to do that’. But they ‘put money in their pockets’ and ‘didn’t care less’. ‘It’s damaged everything.’

She struggles to find support workers who are both experienced enough and willing to support Kaleb and his sometimes-violent behaviours. If he is violent, workers ring the police. Bailee is terrified Kaleb will go back to prison.

Now in his early 30s, Kaleb spends his days watching TV. He moves from the lounge room to the bedroom. He is scared of everything and doesn’t go anywhere. He loves his dog, Will, who is ‘his constant companion that he needs every day’. ‘[Will] is everything to him,’ Kaleb said.

Following a one-hour telehealth appointment, a forensic psychiatrist recently diagnosed Kaleb with schizophrenia. Kaleb needs to go to hospital to get his new medication. However, the hospital doesn’t recognise Will as a support dog and won’t allow him on the premises.

Kaleb refuses to go to hospital without Will. Bailee has tried ‘every which way’ to have Will registered, with no success.

Bailee is frustrated so much money and time have been wasted and so many reports written, but nothing has worked.

‘I'm getting older, I can't cope with how he is anymore, I just can't cope with it.’