NT government awards $650k tender for police cage refurbishment despite children’s rights breach concerns

The NT government has dished out almost $650,000 for the refurbishment of police cages across the Territory, despite rising concern about their use.

Amnesty International objects to the use of police cages, or ‘paddy wagons’, for kids. Picture: Patrina Malone

• Amnesty International demands NT Police cease use of police caged ‘paddy wagons’ to transport kids
• ‘This is not right’: Aboriginal boy in nappies locked in police van

THE NT government has dished out almost $643,000 for the refurbishment of police cages across the Territory, despite rising concern about their use from human rights groups.

A contract worth $642,870 was awarded to Darwin-based company Foremost Pty Ltd by NT Police, Fire and Emergency Services for the “provision of police cage refurbishment and repair for a period of 36 months”.

A petition by Amnesty International calling on the NT to ban the use of police cages, also known as paddy wagons, for children has gained more than 40,000 signatures. \

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Amnesty International National Director Sam Klintworth said NT Police should be seeking alternatives to transporting people in police cages, rather than further investing in them.

“Amnesty International holds grave concerns that the transportation of children in t police cages … violates international human rights standards and laws,” Ms Klintworth said.

“Amnesty International’s attention was first brought to the issue of children being transported in police cages in Tennant Creek.

“Here we learnt that children were being transported the more than 500km journey from Alice Springs to Tennant Creek in police cages.”

Amnesty International National Director Sam Klintworth.

Ms Klintworth said the use of the vehicles “contravenes Rule 73.2 of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Mandela Rules). “

“The alternative to the use of police cages is for children to be transported in a regular police vehicle, or for long trips, by Northern Territory Police Air Wing,” she said.

An NT government spokesperson told the NT News: “caged police vehicles are a certified safe form of transport for prisoners and detainees”.

An NT Police spokesman said children were sometimes transported from Tennant Creek to Alice Springs in a vehicle “pursuant to a Court order”.

“The determination as to how youth in custody are escorted (rear of vehicle or cabin) is made following a comprehensive risk assessment and approval from a Senior Police Officer,” the spokesman said.

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