The Queensland ombudsman has backed away from calls to close a youth prison so “unsuitable” for children that some are self-harming in an attempt to get transferred, amid concerns that the Crisafulli government’s hardline bail laws could create a new crowding crisis in police watch houses.
The ombudsman, Anthony Reilly, published an inspection report last week that raised serious new concerns about the suitability of the Wacol youth remand centre to hold children for extended periods, including the fact that young people were being held in conditions where there is “a lack of space, privacy and natural light”.
The facility, near Brisbane, is often used to hold Indigenous children from north Queensland due to overcrowding at the Cleveland youth detention centre in Townsville.
The report found that some children stayed for longer than a month and that some “complex and high risk” children were shifted back to the remand centre after being placed in a youth detention centre.
Staff told inspectors that some children from north Queensland who had spent extended time at the centre “displayed negative behaviours and engaged in acts of self‑harm to influence and expedite their transfer to another centre”.
The Wacol centre was built and designed as a police watch house but was converted under law to a youth detention centre.
The operation of the Wacol centre has in some ways eased pressure on police watch houses, and the practice of holding vulnerable children in crowded police cells – in some cases for more than 30 days – due to a lack of available places in youth detention. Data shows fewer children held in watch houses, and for shorter periods.
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Critics and children’s advocates say the government has simply shifted the problem to Wacol.
Queensland is building a new youth detention centre at Woodford and Reilly had previously called for the Wacol facility – which he says is “austere and institutional” and unsuitable to hold children for long periods – to be closed when the new facility is opened.
But the ombudsman has backed away from that recommendation in his latest report, over concerns that new state bail laws – dubbed “breach bail, go to jail” – could cause the population of young people in prison to explode, triggering a new crisis in watch houses.
“In the year ahead, it may be the case that the impacts of the above reforms are such that the existing three youth detention centres and the new Woodford youth detention centre do not have sufficient capacity to accommodate the number of children that our criminal justice system requires to be detained,” Reilly said in his report.
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“As a consequence, it is possible that children will need to be detained in large numbers and for lengthy periods in watch-houses. In this scenario, it would be beneficial for the Wacol [centre] to continue to be available to accommodate children to minimise the number of children detained in watch‑houses, and the length of their stay.
“While we do not consider the centre to be a suitable facility for the detention of children, we consider it to be more suitable than detention in police watch-houses.”
Sisters Inside, an organisation that supports women and girls in custody, described the backdown as “a gutless retreat” that “allows the government’s determination to imprison more children to dictate what an independent watchdog is prepared to tolerate”.
“The ombudsman has identified that Wacol is unsuitable for children, then backed away from demanding its closure because the government intends to lock up even more of them,” said Debbie Kilroy, Sisters Inside’s chief executive.
“If a facility is unsuitable for children, it does not become suitable because the government creates something worse. Children’s safety cannot be negotiated down to accommodate a political agenda.”
Kilroy said the findings demanded “a clear stand for children’s safety”.