Exclusive: More than 40 other children held in police custody for undetermined periods because there’s no room in youth detention system

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A 17-year-old boy was detained in a remote Queensland police station for 11 days, Guardian Australia has confirmed, while more than 40 other children are being held for undetermined periods in police custody because there is no room in the state’s youth detention system.

Amnesty International said the state of Queensland youth detention was “creeping towards a human rights crisis”.

In one case, a teenager was held at the watch house in Mount Isa from 2 November until Tuesday, when he was released by a court order.

Amnesty urges Queensland to raise age of criminal responsibility to 14 Read more

The boy spent two months at the Cleveland youth detention centre, near Townsville, after he was arrested in August. He was bailed in October and arrested again in November.

After 11 days in police custody at the Mount Isa watch house, he faced court on Tuesday and was released on a community-based order.

The Queensland Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women has confirmed that on Tuesday, there were 41 young people in the Brisbane police watch house, which has a dedicated children’s wing designed to hold 21 people.

On the same day the Cleveland youth detention centre, which has a capacity of 96, had 92 inmates. The Brisbane youth detention centre can accommodate 130 young people and only has one spare bed.

The department said children who are refused bail by courts can be held in watch houses. It said numbers “change daily” and that “a range of operational factors other than capacity” were taken into account when deciding to transfer people to youth prisons. It would not comment on the Mount Isa case.

“At all times the safety of young people and staff remain the highest priority,” the department said.

While the youth wing at the Brisbane watch house is overcrowded, and while children are being held at other watch houses across Queensland, concerns have grown they are being detained alongside adult prisoners and in environments designed to hold people for short periods of time.

Amnesty said a “disturbance” also occurred at a youth detention facility in Brisbane this week.

“These incidents were a direct result of the overcrowding in Queensland’s youth prisons, which is creeping towards a human rights crisis,” Amnesty’s Indigenous rights adviser Rodney Dillon said.



“These are not isolated incidents. There have been other reports of violent incidents and even of children being forced to sleep on the floor.



“The obvious answer is to get kids on remand out of prison and back with their families, where safe to do so.”

Dillon said four of five children in prison were unsentenced and being held on remand.



“They haven’t been found guilty, they are waiting to be heard [in court]. While they remain in prison, they are being harmed by the system.



“Queensland has the highest rate of kids in remand of the whole country … The Palaszczuk government has made progress in many areas but this is definitely not one of them. We know that a new youth justice strategy is due by the end of the year but we don’t know when any changes will come and kids are struggling in overcrowded prisons now.



Dillon said the situation was “more heightened” for Indigenous children. They spend, on average, 71 days in detention on remand, compared with 50 days for non-Indigenous children.

'People will continue to die': coroners' 'deaths in custody' reports ignored Read more

Amnesty is campaigning for Queensland to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14, saying youth detention is “quicksand” for the 150 children under 14 imprisoned in the state each year.

“Children arrested before the age of 14 are three times more likely to commit offences as adults than children arrested after 14,” Dillon said. “By applying criminal penalties to young children we are trapping them in the justice system.

“We can’t continue to allow incidents like this, which are potentially harmful for both the children and the staff, to keep happening. The government must act now.”

The department said it helps ensure the safety and wellbeing of young people in watch houses “through a number of measures including expediting transfers of young people to detention centres, providing a rapid bail response for young people, establishing clear watch house protocols with [police] and working with youth justice service centres to help finalise court matters quickly”.

It said programs to address demand in youth detention included therapeutic and support services, and that it worked with police on occasions where it was necessary to hold young people in a watch house.

Last year, an independent review was unable to rule out “systemic” mistreatment in youth prisons because its scope was too limited.

