Women’s prison advocacy group Sisters Inside is calling for a radical overhaul of the child safety system in its latest report.
State Controlled Childhood: The Business of Family Policing in Queensland, released on 28 May, draws on the lived experiences of mothers, former foster children, children from residential care and care workers.
The 40-page report contains testimony including allegations of sexual violence, criminalisation, neglect, and children being charged by police for reacting to abuse and confinement.
Sisters Inside CEO Debbie Kilroy said the report told the truth about what was happening to children and families in the state.
“Children are being removed not because families are inherently harmful but because families are poor, criminalised, radicalised, unsupported and heavily surveilled,” Ms Kilroy said.
“The state responds to poverty and trauma with punishment and removal instead of care and support.”
The report shows residential care spending in Queensland ballooned from $200 million in 2014-15 to more than $1.2 billion in 2024-25.
“Entire agencies, NGOs and private contractors advance their own livelihoods on the back of family separation,” Ms Kilroy said.
“The state manufactures the conditions that lead to removal, then funds itself and its partners to ‘fix’ the problem it created.
“The solutions already exist in community, culture, housing, healing and collective care.
“We do not need more surveillance, more removals, more residential care homes or more prisons for children.
“We need governments willing to invest in families staying together safely and with dignity.”
Read the report here.
Share this article