WA's Corruption and Crime Commission has found no evidence of serious misconduct among staff working the night Cleveland Dodd self harmed, causing him to become the state's first recorded juvenile death in custody.

WARNING: This story discusses incidents of self-harm and contains the name and image of an Indigenous person who has died.

However, the CCC report said the troubled youth facility was "trapped in a cycle of destruction" with staff set up to fail.

The CCC launched a probe after 16-year-old Cleveland died in October last year after trying to take his own life in his cell at Unit 18 – a temporary youth detention facility set up inside the maximum-security Casuarina adult prison.

An ABC investigation later uncovered how a number of opportunities to save his life were missed. 

Commissioner John McKechnie's report found no evidence of serious misconduct – "serious" being an offence carrying a jail term of two or more years – or that Cleveland's calls for help were ignored by staffing working on the night.

But he did comment that at least one Department of Justice policy was "setting [officers] up to fail" and "for Unit 18 to operate as it did in October 2023 appears to pose a risk to [youth custodial officers] and the young people detained in their care".

"There were undoubtedly breaches of [Department of Justice] procedures and policies that occurred on the night of Cleveland's self harm," the Commissioner wrote.

"There may have been conduct engaged in that constitutes misfeasance of misconduct of another kind."