Many Australians assume that when a child is refused bail, they’re taken straight to a youth detention centre. In reality, many spend days – and sometimes weeks – in police custody before being transferred to youth detention.
Authors
- Shelley J. Walker
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Justice Health, National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University
- Jocelyn Jones
Vice-Chancellor’s Associate Professional Research Fellow, Edith Cowan University
Last week, an ABC investigation revealed children were held in police custody in Tasmania more than 300 times last financial year, including one child who was held for 55 hours.
Our current research suggests this issue extends far beyond Tasmania. Yet police custody remains one of the least visible and least scrutinised detention settings in Australia’s criminal legal system.
Here’s what we’ve found so far.
Police custody wasn’t designed for children
Police custody – also called the watch house, lock-up or police cells – is the first point of detention after arrest, intended for short stays while police investigate an alleged offence.
These environments were never designed for children. They generally don’t have the staff or services needed to keep children safe and respond to their developmental, health and wellbeing needs.
Concerns about conditions in police custody are not new.
In 1983, 16-year-old Aboriginal boy John Pat died in a Roebourne police cell. Four police offers were charged with manslaughter but were later acquitted. Pat’s death was the catalyst for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody .
Since the royal commission ended more than three decades ago, coroners , ombudsmen , academics , Aboriginal legal services and government reviews have repeatedly raised concerns about prolonged stays in police custody, poor conditions and inadequate oversight.
Deaths in police custody continue to occur , reinforcing longstanding concerns about the safety of these environments for both adults and children.
There is a clear need for greater independent oversight and transparency around who is held in police custody, for how long, and the conditions in which they are detained. Yet the Australian government has not undertaken a national police custody survey since 2002, leaving us without even basic national data on these issues.
Some jurisdictions are yet to introduce independent inspections of police custody facilities, an obligation under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture , to which Australia has been a signatory since 2017.
What young people told us
We are conducting a study to understand young people’s experiences of police custody across Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia.
So far, we’ve interviewed 25 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous young people aged 15-24 years who have been in police custody, and 18 professionals who support or visit young people in police custody (including lawyers and youth advocates).
Every young person we interviewed first experienced police custody as a child – some while still in primary school. The youngest was just ten and the average age was 14.
Our emerging findings show nearly two thirds of our respondents spent at least one period of three days or more in police custody, while around one in six had spent a week or longer.
For many young people, one of the hardest things was not knowing what would happen next. Left alone in their cells, they described having little information about how long they would be there, whether they were going to court or youth detention, or when they would see family again.
One young person recalled:
I didn’t know what was going on […] I didn’t know when I was going to leave […] I just kind of thought – this is going to be the rest of my life.
As the hours stretched into days, young people repeatedly described cold, dirty and deeply isolating environments. They spoke of sleeping on thin mattresses on concrete floors, harsh lighting, wearing the same clothes for days, and long periods with little or no meaningful human interaction.
For one young person, police custody was “cold and lonely […] like death”.
Young people described failures to meet basic care needs, including delays accessing medication and, at times, drinking water.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people – who are disproportionately represented in criminal legal processes – described racist treatment and culturally unsafe care.
This added another layer of fear and distress for a group already disproportionately affected by systemic racism and the ongoing impacts of intergenerational trauma.
As one young person recalled being told:
Look at your skin […] You’re going to spend the rest of your life in here.
Young people weren’t asking for much
When we asked young people what would have made the biggest difference, their answers were remarkably simple. They wanted to be treated with dignity, kindness and respect.
As one young person reflected:
Just treat the kids better, man. At the end of the day, half of us end up realising in a few years how dumb the shit is we’re doing […] You don’t need to abuse us and treat us like we’re fucking [drug lord] El Chapo. Not all of us are like that.
The ABC’s reporting has shone a light on what is happening in Tasmania. It should be the beginning – not the end – of a national conversation about police custody and the rights of children.
Children should not be held in police custody. But if they are, governments have a responsibility to ensure they are treated with dignity and respect, and that their safety, wellbeing and human rights are protected.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, or 13YARN (13 92 176) for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. If you’re aged under 25, you can call Kids helpline on 1800 55 1800 or webchat here .
