This was published 1 year ago
Teens held in police cells for weeks because youth detention was full
By Cloe Read
Two teenagers were held in police watch houses for more than two weeks, breaking police protocol, because there was no room in Queensland’s youth detention centres.
One of the teenagers, a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy in Mount Isa, in north-west Queensland, was released on bail following allegations he and a friend took a joyride in a car that had a three-year-old child in the back seat.
One youth had been kept in the watch house in Mount Isa for 18 nights, the magistrate said.
Police alleged the owner of the car left it unlocked with the engine running, and while the owner was away, the teenager and his friend drove off.
Police said the teen and his friend drove around for up to 30 minutes before pulling over and leaving the child on the side of a street.
“Continuing to drive with the child in the car for even 20 minutes was extraordinarily callous and one can only imagine the profound terror that the child’s parents must have experienced in that period,” magistrate Eoin Mac Giolla Ri said in his judgment.
The alleged incident occurred on December 31, and the teenager was held in the Mount Isa watch house until this week.
The Queensland Police Service operational procedural manual states children should not be held overnight in a watch house.
“The OPM is clear that the detention of a child beyond one night in a watch house should only ever occur in ‘extraordinary circumstances’, but ... Youth Justice advises that all three detention centres in Queensland are at capacity and that there is no prospect [the teenager] will be transferred to a detention centre in the near term,” Mac Giolla Ri said this week.
“There is another child in the Mount Isa watch house who has been there since January 1, 2023, i.e. 18 nights.”
Detention centres across Queensland are frequently near capacity. Over the summer break more than 570 juveniles were arrested as part of a targeted police operation, which contributed to centres filling.
The teenager was granted bail by Mac Giolla Ri, who said he was satisfied the risk to the community could be adequately mitigated.