In early March 2024, the Queensland (Australia) Child Death Review Board publicly released its 2022-2023 report about child deaths in the state of Queensland. The report included an analysis of youth detention in Queensland, including the deaths (suicide and an overdose) of two indigenous teenage boys who were in solitary confinement. The report concluded that although the boys had ultimately died after their release, their deaths were “preventable”.
Prolonged solitary confinement is a form of punishment that has been decried by various human rights organisations, including the United Nations, as inhumane. The harsh effects that solitary confinement often has on adults are often, even more severe for children. The United Nations expert on torture stated that solitary confinement of children and the mentally disabled “constitutes cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” and should be eliminated. The two boys explicitly noted in the report, were held in solitary confinement for well over half of their total time spent in detention. The majority of the day was spent in almost total isolation; with the boys being allowed out for only two hours a day. While some of this time spent in isolation was due to the boys' own actions and by their request (to avoid bullying from the other detainees), the majority of it was due to a lack of staff in the respective facilities. Shortly after their release, one boy committed suicide and the other overdosed. The Child Death Review Board concluded that "The two boys were denied the opportunity for a rehabilitative and transformative experience in detention … likely [causing] further harm and impact[ing] their physical and social and emotional wellbeing,” and this at least contributed to their deaths.
This report has led human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch to call for Australia to ban solitary confinement for children and those with disabilities in order adequately respect the rights of children. The Report itself acknowledges that the stories and tragic endings of these two specific boys are merely illustrative of a system in which youth offenders are often marginalized and recriminalized and that punitive responses, such as solitary confinement, do little but leave children with lifelong trauma which they may not recover from.
Click here to read the Child Death Review Board Annual Report 2022-2023