A Queensland government plan to build a remand centre for children has been denounced as another “reactive Band-Aid solution” by those working in the sector.
On Thursday the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, announced that up to $250m would be spent for the fast-tracked construction of a 50-bed youth remand centre in Wacol, on the outskirts of Brisbane.
The Queensland police service will build the remand centre, but the department of youth justice will be responsible for its operation and staffing. Construction will start next month and the facility is expected to open in 2024.
Palaszczuk said the facility would ensure “young people have a place to go” while they await trial.
“No one wants to see young people in watch houses for extended periods of time. I don’t want to see it. The public doesn’t want to see it. But we know that some of these young people are serious repeat offenders,” she said.
But the chief executive of the Youth Advocacy Centre, Katherine Hayes, said the underlying causes of youth crime needed to be addressed or the cycle would continue.
“We’re concerned about the ongoing Band-Aid solutions because there’s no coherent approach to prevention and rehabilitation – it’s just this reactive response,” she told Guardian Australia.
“It’s just another stopgap solution until Woodford and Cairns [youth detention centres] come online [in 2026].”
Hayes said in any given youth detention centre, there would generally be more than 80% of children on remand.
“Another reason why the watch houses are filling up because of the over-policing of the young people. We’re aware of a number of cases that are thrown out by magistrates because [children] should have been cautioned rather than arrested,” she said.
Hayes said the approach did not make the community safer but instead “entrenches kids in a cycle of crime”.
The chief executive of Cairns-based organisation Youth Empowered Towards Independence, Genevieve Sinclair, said the “real question is why on earth we have so many children in detention facilities and not in school”.
“[It’s] difficult to be pleased a week out from the referendum that Queensland is locking up way more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children up than any other state,” she said.
“Why do we have a youth justice strategy that aims to reduce number of young people on remand but we are having to build more remand beds?”
The chief executive of the Queensland Council of Social Service (Qcoss), Aimee McVeigh, said children do not belong in adult watchhouses.
“The government’s announcement today is acknowledgment of this,” she said. “As a society, we must address the root causes of problematic behaviour as quickly and as comprehensively as possible.”
Mia Schlicht, a research analyst at the Institute of Public Affairs, said the plan was “shortsighted, expensive, and will not improve community safety in Queensland”.
The police commissioner, Katarina Carroll, said she was under “no illusion [about] what a priority” it was for the government to fund such a centre.
Carroll said the centre would give watch houses “respite”, but could also address underlying issues from “a therapeutic, health, education perspective”.
“I’ve been very, very clear that watch houses are not for children. They’re a temporary facility in which children come into and exit as soon as possible,” she said.
“This [remand centre] is reducing the overstay of children and into the future.”
Guardian Australia revealed in September that the recently built Caboolture watch house, north of Brisbane, will be converted to a child-specific facility.
It comes after an influx of children in youth detention centres and watch houses due to the state’s tough new youth justice laws.
