The report notes the average daily number of kids in youth detention rose again in 2023-24 to 286 – 86 per cent were on remand for an average period (48 days) “steadily increasing” for four years.

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Capacity in the state’s three youth detention centres is 306, with safe operating levels deemed lower. Richards said the result was the more than 500 kids kept in watch houses across all but one month.

Premier David Crisafulli warned on Thursday of “short-term challenges” with detention – as the summer offending peak looms – under his own youth justice changes widely panned by experts.

What they said

While Richards said it was inevitable in a state the size of Queensland that there would be times when a child needed to spend a night in the watch house, the time spent by some was “significant”.

“In the last year, 447 young people spent more than a week in a watch house and another 259 spent more than two weeks in a watch house,” she wrote in her report overview.

“Watchhouses are not meant for, or equipped to, hold prisoners for extended periods. They are not appropriate places for children to be housed.”

Childrens Court president Deborah Richards

Richards acknowledged the complexity of children in the justice system, its growing disproportionate cohort of First Nation kids, and the less than 0.6 per cent of 10- to 17-year-olds with no ongoing contact.

She also noted the small core of young offenders who “cause deep concern” to the community driving “increasing calls for harsher and/or different penalties”.