Australia is criminalising disabled youngsters and allegedly conserving them “in cages” in police watch homes, in response to Australia’s nationwide youngsters’s commissioner.
“It seems the only thing we do in this country for kids with disabilities who have been failed by every other system, including health and education, is criminalise them,” Anne Hollonds advised Guardian Australia.
“It’s absolutely abominable.”
“I had no idea that in Australia we do this to children until I went there myself,” Hollonds stated.
Hollonds is asking for media organisations to be held accountable for irresponsible reporting on youth crime and for politicians to be referred to as out for ignoring the perfect worldwide proof on coping with youngsters within the justice system.
She alleges that prisons detaining youngsters are the place “the most egregious breaches of human rights are occurring in this country”.
Final week, Guardian Australia and SBS The Feed printed a sequence of movies and tales which revealed the distressing therapy of kids in Queensland police custody, a lot of them disabled, and a few left screaming, freezing, and struggling to breathe in isolation cells.
The investigation detailed what occurs in Queensland when youngsters are detained in “watch houses” – short-term holding cells, often situated inside police stations and designed to carry violent and harmful adults.
Hollonds just lately completed interviewing roughly 150 youngsters detained within the justice system all through Australia, and her analysis included touring the Queensland watch homes the place youngsters had been being held.
“I’m probably one of the few people in the country that’s actually seen the conditions in the watch houses. And every chance I get, I want to tell that story of what I was told when I visited, and what I saw.”
She was advised that youngsters had been saved within the cells, which she described as “like cages”, for as much as six weeks at a time within the worst instances.
“They are in cells really only suitable for an adult overnight, and there was no natural light, no windows, no fresh air, no outdoor space,” she stated.
“I asked the police officers what training they had to care for these children with complex needs. But they had no training.”
The complexities of the detained youngsters typically included cognitive incapacity and mind damage, Hollonds stated. A lot of the youngsters had been on remand and had not been sentenced or discovered responsible of any crime.
Hollonds stated she thought the watch home cells had been “horrible”.
“There is nothing in them for children. They’re not getting education, or rehabilitation,” she stated.
“But then I saw the other rooms there, that were storage-cupboard sized. Children were put in these rooms if their behaviour was too difficult to manage.
“I just couldn’t imagine a child, a distressed, traumatised child, being put into this room.”
When she visited a well being facility connected to one of many Queensland prisons, Hollonds requested one of many well being professionals what they do for youngsters who’re detoxing from medicine and alcohol.
“The staff member said: ‘That’s not a problem, because they will have detoxed at the watch house’.” There aren’t any well being staff or amenities on the watch homes.
Hollonds’ findings will type a part of a Human Rights Fee report being tabled to parliament in August on easy methods to enhance security and wellbeing for youngsters in youth justice.
The report will name for each state and territory to repeatedly meet with the federal authorities to debate baby security and wellbeing, as happens for points recognized by nationwide cupboard as precedence areas, similar to ladies’s security. It would name for a public well being response to youth justice, together with early well being intervention providers for youngsters and their households or carers.
“The commonwealth keeps their hands off youth justice, saying ‘it’s not our responsibility’ because prisons are managed by states and territories,” Hollonds stated.
“I would argue our most vulnerable children are victims of federation failure.
The report will also suggest the media be held to account for irresponsible reporting of youth crime.
For example, Hollonds said there are media organisations that recycle the same CCTV, phone or security camera footage of youth engaging in criminal behaviour for multiple stories, giving the impression of new crimes occurring and being captured.
She said politicians also need to be called out for failing to approach youth crime based on the best international evidence, which shows the younger a child is at their first sentencing, the more likely they are to reoffend.
“How many exposés do we need to have in this country before someone notices that what we’re doing is completely the wrong thing, and it’s not keeping the community safer?” Hollonds stated.
“We’re recycling the same evidence, but there is no accountability for addressing the underlying causes of youth crime by addressing the safety and wellbeing needs of these children, which is what ultimately would keep the community safer.”
She stated it prices over $1m a 12 months to lock up a baby, which may as a substitute be spent on conserving youngsters wholesome, in housing, out of poverty and in school studying, as that is additionally what works to maintain the group protected.
It’s a sentiment echoed by president of the Royal Australasian Faculty of Physicians Paediatrics and Little one Well being Division Council, Prof Nitin Kapur, who stated youngsters below 14 years of age shouldn’t be within the felony justice system within the first place.
He stated he was “horrified” to see the footage of the therapy of kids in watch homes.
“These are 10, 11-year-old children with neurodisability, their developmental age is probably seven, eight years of age,” he stated.
“For them to be in contact with the criminal justice system actually horrifies me.
“Many children who interact with the criminal justice system often have underlying health conditions, making it even more important that they have access to adequate and appropriate supports.
“Queensland must coordinate, fund, and provide effective and timely health and wellbeing assessments for all children and young people entering custodial settings. This should be conducted by qualified health professionals, including referral to paediatricians.”
