During Estimates hearings on Thursday 1 August 2024, I asked the Director General of the Department of Youth Justice about official oversight of kids held in police watchhouses.
You can read my questions and his full response below, or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings (Hansard) here.
Mr BERKMAN: Director-General, I want to put my question generally around watch houses. Obviously we are seeing very high numbers of children being detained for pretty long periods in watch houses. While I appreciate that is a matter for police not youth justice, while they are in these facilities there are, as I understand it, various services that visit the watch houses to provide oversight. Director-General, what are the processes for these oversight services to advise the department and subsequently the minister of what is happening in these watch houses, including any incidents like self-harm, assaults, suicide attempts or where significant risks are identified?
Mr Gee: I thank the member for the question. I am more than happy to provide a more detailed out-of-session briefing too. For me, the first point I would make is that everything is on CCTV footage. The processes are in place for those services to be able to not just contractually give us information around the performances and the number of outputs I suppose or widgets they produce—I do not mean that in a derogatory way; there is a strong alignment between the work of the youth co-responders and our youth justice staff who go into the watch houses.
To be very frank, watch houses are designed to limit the number of people in them, and when you are providing services at the intense rate that we are now—very different from how we did five to 10 years ago—there is a logistical exercise for the Police Service, the watch house keeper, to organise all of those services going through. If I use some of the watch houses in the north as an example, you will have meals three times a day but you will also have youth co-responders, Youth Justice and the NGO groups—Murri Watch, YETI and so on—going in and out. There is actually a roster developed between all of those entities and very good local approaches.
I am very proud to say that, post Fitzgerald in this state, there are a number of entities that are tasked with legislative responsibility to overview the process. I think the Inspector of Detention Services is a good step forward. I also mention the Ombudsman’s role. On taking up the role, I asked the Ombudsman to look specifically at a few things—use of force, separations and those sorts of things. I know that he has done work on Cairns and a few other watch houses and he is also doing some work on our approach to separations in detention centres. I will let him speak to that.
Mr BERKMAN: I appreciate the information about the range of services, but I am specifically interested in reports to Youth Justice. Are you able to give us any data about how many reports were received by the youth justice department in, say, the 2023-24 financial year, specifically around serious incidents in watch houses including self-harm, assaults and suicide attempts and what proportion of those reports resulted in transportation out of the watch house within 24 hours?
Mr Gee: I also should have mentioned the Office of the Public Guardian and the Community Visitor Program. I was formerly at the Police Service and then took over Youth Justice. We invited in the then Public Guardian, so that complaints process is there. The community visitors and the Public Guardian is a formal process. There is also a range of processes whereby people can make open complaints to us. I do not think, from memory, that we have any about our staff. I think, from memory, in terms of complaints about other entities, most probably the Police Service, there were six for the year.