Queensland Police have launched an internal review of watch houses across the state to address “end-to-end systemic issues”.
A police watch house is used to hold people for short periods of time.
It follows an investigation published by The Guardian and SBS into the treatment of young people in Queensland Police custody.
Qld Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said the review will look at the staffing, training and operations of the state’s facilities.
Watch houses
Watch houses are designed for short-term detainment and are often attached to police stations or local courts. They are different to youth detention centres designed to house young people.
The Qld Human Rights Commission said it’s “long been opposed” to keeping children in watch houses.
According to data given to TDA, 1,500 children were held in a QLD watch house for at least a week from 2018 to 2023. In August 2023, the Queensland Government suspended the state’s Human Rights Act to allow children to be kept in watch houses.
Review
Commissioner Gollschewski said he’d asked for a review “into how we design, provision and operate watch houses with a commitment to ongoing reform.”
He said: “In some instances, our people have got it wrong.”
Gollschewski said Qld Police had received 42 complaints about watch houses in the last financial year and 101 “allegations”. He did not specify what had been alleged.
During the review, police officers at watch houses will be required to wear cameras. A publicly available dashboard will be updated daily showing the number of people in watch houses.
Gollschewski said: “We’d rather have no children in watch houses. But obviously… there’s a community safety consideration…
“What we want to do is move them out of there as quickly as they possibly can.”
“I acknowledge there are end-to-end systemic issues in our watch houses, and the whole system is under significant pressure…
Once an offender comes into a watch house, it is our responsibility to treat them with dignity, respect and effectively manage them while they are in our care.”
QLD Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski in a press conference announcing a review into the state’s watch houses.
Response
Qld Human Rights Commissioner Scott McDougall said a review into the state’s watch houses is “critical”.
McDougall said the priority of the review should be “to prevent children being detained in watch houses in the first place” and “to establish ways of working that will respect the rights of children”.
“This is critically important given detention centres are full and there is a high likelihood that children will be sent to watch houses for prolonged periods.”
