The detention of a 13-year-old boy with multiple developmental disorders in solitary confinement in a Queensland detention centre was “cruel”, “inappropriate” and a direct breach of the state’s youth justice principles, a children’s court judge has ruled.
Amid a heated statewide debate about youth crime, justice Tracy Fantin said the state of Queensland now “must bear responsibility” for the boy’s actions, after his release with a reprimand.
“If you treat a child like an animal, it is unsurprising that they may behave like an animal,” Fantin said in a judgment.
The boy, who suffers from foetal alcohol syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, pleaded guilty to being part of a group who hit and robbed a trolley collector at a shopping centre.
He spent a total of 122 days on remand for the charge, mostly at the Cleveland detention centre.
Documents supplied to the court, relating to the last 87 days the boy spent in the youth detention centre, show that for 78 of those days he was confined to his cell for more than 20 hours each day.
For 10 days, he was confined to his cell for the entire 24 hours.
“That is, you have effectively been held in solitary confinement,” Fantin said.
Separate recent children’s court judgments have raised similar concerns about conditions in the Cleveland youth detention centre, which is overcrowded and understaffed.
Fantin said the Queensland Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs initially refused to release information the court requested, including details of the child’s incarceration. It was later obtained via a court order.
“When one sees the information, [the department’s] declining to [provide the details] is unsurprising, because that information contains the regime of detention which you have been subjected to,” Fantin said.
“Your period of incarceration at Cleveland Youth Detention Centre has been significantly more onerous that it otherwise would have been … the circumstances in which you have been detained have been cruel, inappropriate, and have served no rehabilitative effect.
“Indeed, I am comfortably satisfied that you would have suffered harm while detained in Cleveland Youth Detention Centre.
“In addition, I am comfortably satisfied that your incarceration for large periods of time in solitary confinement, or virtually in solitary confinement, for between 20 and 24 hours a day, is a direct breach of the charter of youth justice principles [in the Youth Justice Act]”.
Court documents detail that the boy had been using drugs since he was 10; that he had been “subjected to abuse and neglect in [his] father’s care at different times”.
“None of that is any of your fault,” Fantin said.
“Those adults have let you down and, in some ways, the state, which was meant to be caring for you in New South Wales and Queensland, has also let you down.
“That does not excuse your bad behaviour. You cannot go around hitting people with sticks or trying to take their money, because if you do that, you will just end up in jail or in detention.
“But it does mean that those things that are special to you have to be taken into account, and I do give them significant weight.”
The state’s youth justice principles have been the subject of debate in recent weeks.
Fantin said principles that were clearly breached included that a child detained in custody should be held “in a facility suitable for children”.
The judge also made specific reference to the first principle of the act: that “the community should be protected from offences and, in particular, recidivist high-risk offenders”.
She said the boy’s period in detention “will have achieved little or nothing to protect the community from … future offending”.
“Indeed, it may well have increased the risk of further offending … and the State of Queensland must bear responsibility for that.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the department said the “safety of staff and young people is always paramount” in youth detention.
“A separation is an event that requires young people to be secured (separated) in their rooms and can occur in response to a number of situations, including emergencies and other types of incidents, as well as health, safety and security requirements, and staffing shortages,” the spokesperson said.
“Separations are used as a last resort.”
