A juvenile being held in an adult watch house for more than a month, kids sleeping in shower stalls on mats, and children being denied access to fresh air and sunlight are examples of Queensland's youth justice system at crisis point, advocates and lawyers say.
Youth Advocacy Centre (YAC) CEO Katherine Hayes said a concerning pattern of young people being detained for weeks in Queensland watch houses had emerged.
YAC recently dealt with a client who had been in the Maroochydore watch house for 33 days.
"There are kids in the watch houses around the state that have been there for easily 31 to 32 days, and it's really quite concerning because it’s not a pattern that seems to be going away," Ms Hayes said.
"These young people being held are suffering trauma, so for example with the [case spending] 33 days in the Maroochydore watch house, the young person hasn't seen daylight for that period of time.
"He's been visited by his parents a couple of times but otherwise there have been visitation rights that have been denied, he hasn't been allowed to have support from various agencies and our lawyer has had limited access.
"He's in a windowless room, it's a concrete box, he has a couple of blankets but otherwise it's 33 days with no human comforts."
Ms Hayes said the experiences for young people in watch houses at the moment have been "dehumanising and traumatising" and could lead to an increased likelihood of reoffending.
"We've had stories of young people denied changes of clothes for up to 10 days — this is despite the support agencies supplying changes of clothes," she said.
"We had a young Indigenous woman who wasn't provided sanitary products and she bled through onto her clothes and was too humiliated to ask the officers there for any kind of assistance so waited for our youth support workers to come in and help her out.
"We've had incidents of young people sleeping on yoga mats in shower stalls that stank of urine and awful situations where another young person who has an intellectual disability has been in the watch house for over 30 days and hasn't been provided with any kind of support he usually gets and very limited family visitation rights."
Previously, Youth Justice Minister Leanne Linard had said in a statement that young people were held in watch houses as part of normal processing, including arranging transport to a youth detention centre.
She said that her department "works closely with police to ensure young people are not held in watch houses any longer than required".
Ms Hayes said the current issue of children in watch houses was comparable to 2019, the same year a Four Corners expose caused national outrage and triggered an overhaul of the Queensland system.
"It is at least the same, if not worse," she said.
"It does seem to be at the moment there's a real crisis that needs to be addressed that isn't being addressed."
The Four Corners story, which revealed serious incidents of children held in watch houses in appalling conditions for weeks, caused the Queensland government to set up a new department and remove most children from watch houses.
The issue reached crisis point then due to 17-year-olds being shifted from the adult prison system into youth detention centres in Queensland in 2018.
Children started being held in police watch houses for longer periods after the detention centres began to reach capacity.
Police reveal numbers of children in watch houses
A Queensland Police Service (QPS) spokesman said in a statement that since the beginning of January, there have been 25 young people detained in police watch houses for more than three weeks.
Currently, there are 88 young people in QPS custody, the spokesman said.
"The QPS operational response in support of the government's strategies to reduce youth crime and prioritise community safety has resulted in increased high-visibility patrols and subsequently more offending persons being taken into custody," the statement said.
"The number of young people remanded by the courts this year has increased, resulting in a greater number of days people spend in QPS custody awaiting placement within QCS [Queensland Corrective Services] or DCYJMA [Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs] detention facilities."
Bail legislation changes 'directly contributed to this problem'
Queensland's Human Rights Commissioner Scott McDougall said he believed the issues being experienced in Queensland watch houses now were due to legislation changes made by the Palaszczuk government in 2021.
The law changes were sparked by a number of high-profile incidents committed by young offenders, including the deaths of Matthew Field and Kate Leadbetter who were struck by a stolen vehicle driven by a teenager at Alexandra Hills in 2021.
The changes included a presumption against bail and an increased number of special youth justice police prosecutors, which YAC lawyers and Mr McDougall said have led to more children being held on remand for longer.
"To my understanding, we now have children in watch houses for up to a month at a time," Mr McDougall said.
"Imagine spending 30 days in a cell with no fresh air, no sunlight, no ability to have exercise and no ability to improve or gain an education.
"It looks like we're back to the worst of 2019 where we saw the horrific circumstance that Four Corners revealed."
Mr McDougall said the Queensland government's "draconian" laws removing the presumption of bail for young offenders "directly contributed to this problem".
"So has the appointment of 12 special prosecutors to directly oppose bail for children," he said.
"We cannot claim to be a society that values human rights if we, altogether as a society, accept that situation."
More law reforms targeting youth offenders were announced six weeks ago by the premier after the death of Emma Lovell who was allegedly stabbed in the chest by two teenagers on Boxing Day.
The changes, which include more severe punishments for violent offenders like increasing the maximum penalty for car thefts, are set to be introduced to Queensland Parliament later this month.
Mr McDougall said he's yet to be consulted on the reforms and he had written to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to ask to be involved in the process.
He said the commission was also calling for better coordination across government in its response to youth crime and wanted to see greater involvement from the health and education departments.
At a press conference in the state's Wide Bay on Monday, Ms Palaszczuk was asked for her response to comments made by Mr McDougall about the watch house situation being as bad as 2019.
"It is absolutely not our desire for children to be in watch houses but we need to make sure that they are safe and we are putting in place a comprehensive suite of reforms that will go before the parliament in the next couple of weeks," she said.
She said she was not aware of children being held in watch houses for up to 30 days.
