Queensland’s most prominent victims’ rights groups say the state government must remove children from police watch houses after the release of confronting footage showing the “brutal” treatment of children in the adult holding cells.
The videos, published after a year-long investigation by Guardian Australia and SBS The Feed, showed young people locked in “freezing” isolation cells, becoming panicked and struggling to breathe.
On Thursday the indefinite detention of children in overcrowded watch houses was broadly criticised, including by human rights organisations and an 8,000-member victims of crime group that has been calling for a “zero tolerance” approach to youth crime.
The first-term Labor MP Jonty Bush also appeared to break ranks with her own government on youth justice policy.
Bush, who worked supporting victims before entering the state parliament, told Guardian Australia: “The footage of Sam*, and of all children detained in watch houses, is distressing.
“During Covid, Queenslanders demonstrated enormous capacity to work together, to lead with courage and compassion and to use resources differently to address a public health threat.
“We need to apply this same thinking to our youth justice system. This is a youth justice problem that requires a health and community response.”
Bush said evidence was clear that the younger and longer children are detained in custody, the more likely they are to reoffend. “And the less safe we will all be as a result,” she said.
“It’s clear that communities have had enough, and everyone agrees there must be accountability for actions. But punishment has to be delivered in a way that rehabilitates, not entrenches young people into a lifetime of violence and crime.”
Youth justice has become a totemic issue in the lead-up the October Queensland election, and Labor and the Liberal National party have sought to promote “tough” policies.
The Labor government has twice suspended the Human Rights Act, including to allow children to be detained indefinitely in watch houses, and now locks up more children than anywhere else in the country. The LNP opposition last week announced a hardline “adult crime, adult time” policy, to remove leniency afforded to many children in the courts.
Voice for Victims, an influential group that held a mass public rally in Brisbane in April, said Guardian Australia’s reporting had “successfully highlighted the ongoing failures of youth crime and identified that a more holistic approach is needed to support these children and their carers and families”.
“Voice for Victims and experts have provided the incumbent government and cross benches with evidence-based solutions, including removing [children] from watch houses.
“The government has had these solutions in its possession for more than a year, but has failed to act. The longer this takes, the more victims we will see impacted.”
The Queensland Council of Social Services and the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection Peak released a joint statement in response to the footage calling for the “immediate release of all children in adult watch houses”.
“The child’s cries for help are heartbreaking,” the Qcoss chief executive, Aimee McVeigh, said of the footage of Sam.
“You can hear the terror and pain in her voice.
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“Queenslanders know children do not belong in adult watch houses, and this harrowing vision proves it.”
The National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls said it was “appalled and deeply troubled” by the footage of children in police watch houses.
“Children belong in their bedrooms, in their classrooms, and in our communities – not in cages,” the network’s Tabitha Lean said.
The executive director of the Justice Reform Initiative, Mindy Sotiri, said the state government could not ignore mounting evidence that children were being mistreated in watch houses.
“The government has cited the need to keep the community safe as the basis for locking children up, but there’s overwhelming evidence that shows holding children in inhumane conditions will traumatise them and entrench behaviour that makes future offending much more likely,” she said.
Guardian Australia and SBS The Feed showed part of the footage to the Queensland youth justice minister, Di Farmer. She said she would not comment on the specific incident.
“Of course, no one wants to see a young person in distress, no one wants to see a young person mistreated,” Farmer said.
Asked about the government’s policies leading to the detention of record numbers of children, Farmer said: “I make no apology for keeping the community safe.
“So if a young person is a risk to themselves or to the community, then they will be detained and if they’re in detention or in a watch house [it is] because a court has judged that they be placed there.”
The Queensland police service said it was “aware of various allegations concerning children held in custody in QPS watch houses” and that complaints about mistreatment or inappropriate action would be taken seriously and investigated.
*All names of children and their carers have been changed due to legal restrictions on reporting on children in the justice system
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In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International