May 29, 2019Outcry over locked up kids
Children as young as 10 are in watch houses and “being cruelly abused”
Aboriginal advocates have condemned the practice of Queensland police holding children as young as 10 years old in cells designed for adults. An explosive ABC Four Corners investigation based on more than 500 files revealed that children were being sent to watch houses because Queensland’s two youth detention centres are full.
The children are sometimes held for weeks at a time, and are being denied their basic human rights of proper education and healthcare.
In Queensland, a staggering 87 percent of children locked up are on remand, not having been sentenced for an offence.
Almost 60 percent of children in youth prisons in Queensland are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, with populations in Townsville often reaching 100 percent.
Former Commissioner of the Northern Territory Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children Mick Gooda said it was time for Queensland and all Australian governments to take action.
“Queensland needs to take heed of the lessons from the Northern Territory Royal Commission,” Gooda said. “Police watch houses are not safe places for children, and building more prisons is not the answer.
“I encourage the Queensland government, and all Australian governments, to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years. This, along with Indigenous-led prevention and diversion, are immediate solutions that can put an end to this crisis.”
Change the Record, a committee made up of leading First Nations, human rights and community organisations, also condemned the practice of holding children in watch houses.
Royal Commission co-chair Cheryl Axleby said Indigenous children were “being cruelly abused – losing fingers, being placed with alleged sex offenders, being denied food and medical treatment, and being held in solitary confinement.
“This is a death in custody waiting to happen,” Axleby said. “All children must be immediately removed from police watch houses before a fatal tragedy occurs.
“The government can immediately ease the burden on prisons by raising the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years, making sure our young kids are in community with the culturally safe care and supports they need to thrive.”
Her co-chair Damian Griffis said building more prisons was a guaranteed way to lock up the next generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, especially kids with disability.
“Instead, we need to see Aboriginal-led prevention and diversion programs, justice reinvestment, culturally safe services and supports in place that we know will work for our kids and families,” he said.
Ruth Barson, a legal director at the Human Rights Law Centre, who helped expose the horrors of Don Dale and challenged the Victorian government’s decision to hold children in Barwon maximum security prison, said that police cells were no place for children.
“The Queensland government’s own laws say that children in custody must be kept safe and treated with respect and dignity,” she said.
“They also say that children must have access to proper education and health care. But this investigation shows very clearly that the kids locked in police stations aren’t getting any of these basic rights, raising the question of whether the Government is breaching its own laws.”
Following the Four Corners report, the Queensland opposition announced it would introduce a bill to cap the time children were held at police watch houses at 72 hours, but this move was rejected by Rodney Dillon, Amnesty International Australia’s Indigenous Rights advisor.
“While any action on the traumatising use of watch houses is to be welcomed, three days of detention is still three days too many,” Dillon said.
“The Queensland Police Operational Procedure Manual already stipulates that children should not be kept in a watch house overnight – and that is what should be legislated.
“Unlike the government, the opposition has at least proposed a way to get kids out of watch houses as soon as possible. The government’s so-called ‘investigation’ is too little, too late.
“They know what the problem is. They have been told by us, by the Public Guardian, and by the Youth Advocacy Centre for the past year. Only now that these atrocities have been made public are they listening.
“An investigation is simply a delay tactic and a smokescreen to mask the government’s lack of action.”
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk responded to the Four Corners report by saying she doesn’t want to see young people in detention. “But unfortunately, there are people out there that commit crimes, we’re talking about burglary, we’re talking about injuries to police officers, we’re talking about sexual assaults,” she said.
