Children as young as ten are being detained in adult watch houses and “seeing things no one should see”, a parliamentary committee has been told.
A commission of inquiry into the Tasmanian Government's responses to child sexual abuse in institutions had failed to address the issue, United Workers Union delegate and corrections supervisor Phil Pregnell told the committee on Friday.
“We're putting them into an environment where they can be abused, where they can be set up to fail further on in life, and witnessing things that no one should see,” he said.
Asked by the committee what it was like “for a 10-year-old who's been picked up shoplifting”, Mr Pregnell said it was a “concrete environment with no windows, a basic watch house cell”.
“For young ones, first timers and so forth, it's very, very daunting … it’s not a safe environment,” he said.
"It should be stopped and a new environment created."
The union’s submission to the hearing said around 400 young people aged 10-17 were detained each year at watch houses in Hobart and Launceston, for periods ranging from an hour to three days, before they were transferred into specialised youth detention.
Correctional officers received no specific training, contributing to a “confusion and a lack of confidence” regarding searches or use of force, “or just generally how officers should communicate with young offenders”.
“An incorrectly executed search could result in a young person self-harming and being physically injured," the submission stated.
The committee is holding public hearings on the commission of inquiry’s recommendations.
The government is implementing 191 recommendations from the inquiry, which delivered its final report in September 2023.
There are 54 legislative reforms, including the establishment of a commission for children and young people.
Interim Commissioner for Children and Young People Isabelle Crompton told the committee that 76 per cent of young people in detention were unsentenced, and in 2022-23, 5.8 per cent of unsentenced young people in detention were aged between 10 and 13.
“Any person under the age of 14 really shouldn't be in that context,” she said.
“Those young people are coming through a very adult doorway … those places are no places for children.”
“It links to all of the points I've made around minimum age reform, around increasing non-criminalising, individualised therapeutic responses.”
Her office was listening to children and young people with experience in police watch houses and reception prisons, and would release a report that was specifically focused on that experience.
The inquiry found Tasmanian government had too often responded inadequately to allegations or instances of child sexual abuse over decades.
