A 13-year-old was locked in solitary confinement in Australia for several weeks. Apparently this is not an isolated case.
This case raises concerns about the human rights situation in juvenile prisons in Australia: A 13-year-old had to spend at least 45 days in solitary confinement, the BBC and the Guardian report – 22 days of it at a time. He was therefore only allowed to leave his cell for five days.
The Guardian also reports that the boy testified that he was once deprived of drinking water after flooding his cell during an extended period of isolation. The boy has since been released after 60 days in detention in a Queensland juvenile detention center.
Human Rights Commissioner: Not an isolated case
According to Queensland Human Rights Commissioner Scott McDougall, laws may have been broken in the case. He also does not assume that this is an isolated case, he said according to the BBC.
The boy belongs to the Aborigines, the indigenous people of Australia. He was reportedly taken into custody after an apparent altercation with another 13-year-old.
A case of another 13-year-old from Queensland only became known in February. According to media reports, he suffers from a developmental disorder and was locked in a cell for 20 hours a day for 78 days. A judge ruled in this case that this detention violated several principles of juvenile criminal law.
Tracy Fantin said of her verdict that her time in detention appears to have done “little or nothing to protect the community from (…) future crimes.”
McDougall: Government must develop coherent plan
A tightening of the law for delinquent children is currently being debated in the state. Accordingly, minors should be prosecuted if they violate bail conditions.
“With legislation being passed in Queensland that clearly aims to incarcerate more children, it is all the more important that the government urgently develop a coherent plan to prevent children from entering the criminal justice system,” McDougall said loudly BBC.
