New Queensland department to fix youth justice crisis

Queensland has acted after a week of criticism over the detention of children in adult watch houses.

Queensland deputy Police Commissioner Bob Gee will begin work as the new youth justice department’s director-general on Monday. Picture: Dave Hunt/AAP

One of the state’s most senior police officers will lead a new youth justice department after a week of heavy criticism over the detention of children in maximum security adult watch houses.

Police deputy commissioner and state disaster co-ordinator Bob Gee will begin work as the department’s director-general on Monday and has immediately flagged that building more beds in youth detention centres “is an obvious answer, but it’s not the only answer”.

The highly-regarded Mr Gee was one of the frontrunners to replace outgoing police commissioner Ian Stewart, but the government last month announced they had chosen fire service commissioner and former police assistant commissioner Katarina Carroll for that role.

He says he wants to get children out of watch houses as soon as possible, but could not say when that would be achieved.

“What I think we have to put into perspective, is that once those beds are built, there is a plan to do more than that,” Mr Gee said.

“In the medium term, it is really about restorative justice principles, bringing together health, education, parents, community, to make sure that these children, who have complex problems, are supported.”

Children have been enduring lengthy periods in adult holding cells because the state’s youth detention centres are full. The ABC’s Four Corners highlighted the issue this week, after obtaining documents that detailed cases of some being held in isolation and in suicide smocks.

One girl was put in the same “pod” as two male accused sex offenders at the Brisbane city watch house. Another girl had a finger cut off by a door and had to have it reattached, and a 15-year-old boy was hospitalised after attempting to take his own life.

The Australian revealed last month children were being held for up to five weeks in watch houses, with a Youth Advocacy Centre (YAC) report warning facilities were “grossly unsuited”.

The former president of the Childrens Court of Queensland, judge Michael Shanahan, wrote in his annual report in December that it was a “travesty and a burden on the police service” that children as young as 11 were being held in watch houses.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the new department on Friday. Asked if she was comfortable no laws were broken in the management of children in police watch houses, she said: “What I do know, is that I do not want young people in watch houses for any longer than is absolutely necessary.”

Current Child Safety Minister Di Farmer will be in charge of both departments.

Mr Gee has stressed his focus will be on preventive measures, and said he would work on a plan to solve poverty and disadvantage, particularly in the state’s most rural and remote corners.

“What that requires is for all of us coming together and working on that problem,” he added.

Former Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson, who reviewed the youth justice system last year, said court orders were governing the “circumstances we find ourselves in now”.

“I’m sure that no one is comfortable at all with the current situation, but personally I can’t see a way around it at the moment, and it’ll probably only be able to be addressed over time,” he said.

Both government staffing and funding allocated to the youth justice system will be redirected to form the new department, and there will be no changes to ministerial responsibilities.

The state government is spending $550 million to build new youth detention centres, expand existing facilities and on rehabilitation programs for young offenders.

with AAP