National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds condemned the use of watch houses to detain children in Queensland, when she led an online discussion on Wednesday.
“Out of all the horrific things I’ve seen in this journey, and the horrific stories I’ve heard – and I have to say it’s been absolutely and profoundly heartbreaking – Queensland watch houses are the worst,” Commissioner Hollonds told the audience at the Human Rights of Children – Ending the Use of Watch Houses webinar.
“They are worse than any children’s prisons I’ve visited, and what worries me more than the fact that there’s no natural light, or fresh air, or education, or rehabilitation…is the fact that the police have no training to care for children.
“It’s an absolute indictment of our human rights obligations towards children that we put them in those terrible circumstances and in the care of people who are not trained to help them.”
Joining Commissioner Hollonds on the expert panel at the free Queensland Council of Social Services event were Queensland Family and Child Commissioner Natalie Lewis; Queensland Police Service Deputy Commissioner Camron Harsley and Inspector Jeff Coote; Youth Empowered Towards Independence CEO Genevieve Sinclair; and Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection Peak Acting Executive Director, Strategy, Helena Wright.
The webinar was told that at 6am on Wednesday, 28 children were being held in watch houses across Queensland. Eighteen of them identified as First Nations, and 22 of them had been held for between three and seven days.
However, watch houses were designed as secure detention facilities for short-term use (24 to 48 hours), and for adults, Inspector Coote said.
He and Deputy Commissioner Harsley will lead the review of the state’s 63 watch houses, which was called to address “end-to-end systemic issues”, and which was announced by the State Government in August.
He said the facilities processed more than 75,000 alleged offenders each year, including children as young as 10.
“We can’t send somebody, after they’ve been remanded or sentenced, to youth detention or corrections until they’re accepted by the Department of Justice or Corrective Services,” he said.
“Corrective Services have 21 days to accept an adult. That’s legislated. There’s nothing in the Youth Justice Act giving a period of time, so they can, and have, left kids in our watch houses, particularly my watch house, for an extended period of time.”
Inspector Coote said some watch houses did not have showers or exercise yards.
“The ones that do have exercise yards, there’s no grass. They are a hard area exposed to the elements. In summer, they’re often unusable for a large portion of the day. When it’s inclement weather, when it’s raining, they can’t be used,” he said.
Commissioner Lewis said the situation was “incredibly disappointing” and the politicisation of the issue was the biggest barrier to solving it.
“To date, (in) the public discourse, there’s been this premium on posturing and not problem solving, and so a lot of that takes us to a place where the solutions are not evidence informed, they’re evidence avoidant,” she said.
“We have weaponised the very thing that exists to protect all Queenslanders, just for the appeasement of some, and that is our Human Rights Act.
“For me, that over-riding of the Human Rights Act in relation to children really signals the commencement of a spiral downwards in terms of our policy settings and our legislation here in Queensland in relation to youth justice.”
Commissioner Lewis said Commissioner Hollonds’ report, ‘Help way earlier!’: How Australia can transform child justice to improve safety and wellbeing, which was tabled in Federal Parliament in August, called out the absence of children as a priority nationally.
Commissioner Hollonds said when the report was tabled, she wrote to all state and territory ministers and invited them to request a briefing, but had yet to receive a response.
Read the National Children’s Commissioner’s report here.
The Queensland Law Society supports measures in the report to make the community safer. Read today’s statement from QLS President Rebecca Fogerty.
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