Outrage over children held in watch house

Children are being held for up to five weeks in Queensland police watch houses that are ‘grossly unsuited’ for them, a report says.

Queensland Ombudsman Phil Clarke. Picture: Philip Norrish

Children are being held for up to five weeks in Queensland police watch houses that are “grossly unsuite­d” for them, a report says.

The Youth Advocacy Centre report, completed last month and provided to the state government, says on any given night up to 70 children are held in ill-equipped watch houses, where police lack specialist training.

“Many children are staying for two weeks and in isolated incid­ents may be staying for as long as five weeks,” the report says.

The transition of 17-year-olds into the youth justice system in February last year, in line with the rest of the country, has been blamed for an overcrowding crisis in the state’s two youth detention centres. But the report says “YAC understands there has also been a failure to utilise beds efficiently”.

With police demanding children be taken off their hands, Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Scott McDougall, Ombudsman Phil Clarke, Public Guardian Natali­e Siegel-Brown and Youth Advocacy Centre chairman Damien­ Atkinson visited the Brisbane watch house on Wednesday.

Mr Atkinson said children were staying at the watch house for an average of 10 days, compare­d with the standard stay of up to three days for adults.

He said officers no longer wanted to work at the watch house due to the stress of watching over young offenders.

“They’re in a tiny, cramped pen,” Mr Atkinson said.

“Police say that after three days in there you can see people’s mental health deteriorate. These are kids that haven’t yet been found guilty of any offence.”

Almost every move in the Brisbane watch house is recorded by 160 cameras, raising privacy concern­s for police who have to watch over children. Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers said the situation was “dangerous to police and juveniles alike”.

“The juvenile justice system is in crisis as a result of Youth Minister Di Farmer’s failure to plan and model for the transition of 17-year-olds into the system,’’ Mr Leavers said. “Ms Farmer said she is building 28 more beds for juv­en­iles. That figure needs to be 128.”

Judge Michael Shanahan said in his final annual report as Children’s Court president last year that children as young as 11 were being held in watch houses in a “travesty and a burden on the police service”.

Under corrective services laws, adults should not generally be held in a watch house for more than 21 days. There is no limit for children in watch houses under youth justice laws, as it was never expected they would be held for sustained periods.

The Youth Advocacy Centre report said children were being held close to adult prisoners, and there were often no exercise facil­ities and limited visiting facilities.

“The conditions in the watch houses are grossly unsuited to children,” the report said.

The Brisbane Youth Detention Centre and Townsville’s Cleveland Youth Detention Centre could house up to 230 children.

About 24 beds were unavailable due to security upgrades, the report said. It warned against building more youth detention centre beds, calling on the state to look at international approaches to diverting children from the youth justice system.

Ms Farmer said yesterday two new units had been opened at the Townsville youth detention centre, with 12 new beds.

“Bringing 17-year-olds back under Youth Justice supervision was the right thing to do. There are now no 17-year-olds in adult prisons,” she said.

Ms Farmer said the government had spent $17 million on bail support services to keep young people out of remand and youth detention. A comprehensive youth justice strategy was released­ late last year, with much of the focus on early intervention.