Queensland to remove 17-year-olds from adult prisons

UPDATE: Two simple acts will make space in youth detention centres and avoid the need to build more, a youth justice advocate says.

THE Palaszczuk Government has pledged to move all 17-year-olds out of adult prisons within 12 months of new laws being passed, with plans to introduce legislation into the Parliament next week to facilitate the change.

About 150 juvenile offenders are currently housed in the state’s two youth detention centres, while about 200 17-year-olds would be moved from being under Corrective Services supervision to the youth justice system.

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The Government hopes to plans to introduce the relevant legislation next week and have it debated and passed by the end of the year. From that point, all 17-year-olds will be moved out of adult prisons within 12 months.

The move means 17-year-olds will no longer be viewed as adults by the courts.

However, 17-year-olds currently before the courts would be placed in adult prisons, if sentenced to jail time, until the laws officially change.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she was “immensely proud” of the planned reforms.

“We cannot have a situation where Queensland is the only state in this nation that is treating 17-year-olds differently,” she said.

Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath said the moving of 17-year-olds was a complex issue.

“To achieve this historic reform, we have a lot of work to do,” she said.

Ms Palaszczuk said the changes would involve a budgetary process as the State Government determines whether new facilities will be built, existing ones expanded or sections cordoned off in adult prisons.

“We might be talking about a wing, we don’t know yet,” she said.

Ms D’Ath said the Government could have made the changes via regulation, but wanted to enshrine it in law to make it harder for future governments to reverse the reforms.

The pair also announced the terms of reference for the independent review into the running of the state’s youth detention centres.

The review of youth detention was announced last month.

United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples chairwoman Professor Megan Davis will head the review, along with Kathryn McMillan QC, a barrister who is a member of the Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Council.

The pair will investigate the “practices, operation and oversight” of the state’s youth detention facilities, as well as the allegations revealed by The Courier-Mail about the treatment of 17-year-old Jarrod Clayton.

They will report back by November 30.

The announcement was welcomed as a win for children’s human rights by Amnesty International national director Claire Mallinson.

“This historic move has been 24 years in coming, and is very welcome today. Children deprived of their liberty should be held in conditions appropriate for their age. We welcome that vulnerable children will no longer be held in harsh adult prisons.”

The group called for the Government to immediately stop 17-year-olds being tried as adults as part of the change.

However a leading youth advocate called for the Government’s inquiry to investigate why Queensland had the country’s highest rate of juveniles held on remand — and slammed the Premier for flagging that more detention facilities may be built.

“More than 80 per cent of children in youth detention centres at any point of time are on remand, and it makes no sense for the review not to investigate why we have such an over-reliance on remand,’’ Youth Affairs Network of Queensland director Siyavash Doostkhah said.

“The Premier has jumped the gun by saying a new youth justice facility may need to be built.

“There is absolutely no need for another youth detention centre in Queensland.

“Experts have been advising the successive governments that the way to deal with the complexities of moving 17-year-olds into youth detention centres are to deal with the overuse of remand and to raise the age of criminal responsibility to a minimum of 13.

“These two actions will easily vacate over 90 per cent of the beds currently available in the youth detention centres, and is the most cost-effective approach available.”

The network is also calling for Youth Justice to be transferred back from the Department of Justice and Attorney-General to its traditional place in the Community and Youth portfolio.

Originally published as Queensland to remove 17-year-olds from adult prisons