Queensland’s Law-and-Order Agenda is Creating a Human Rights Crisis in Watch Houses

Sisters Inside condemns the Queensland Government’s punitive law-and-order agenda, which is driving dangerous overcrowding in police watch houses across the state and placing imprisoned people at risk.

New figures reveal police watch houses across Queensland continue to operate well beyond capacity, despite an internal Queensland Police Service review identifying serious concerns almost a year ago. Facilities designed for short-term imprisonment have become de facto prisons, with people routinely held in overcrowded and degrading conditions.

‘Reports of people being forced to share cells, share beds, and sleep on mattresses on concrete floors should alarm every Queenslander,’ said Debbie Kilroy.

‘These conditions are not an accident. They are the predictable outcome of a government that has chosen punishment over solutions,’ said Debbie Kilroy.

The Crisafulli Government came to office promising harsher sentencing laws, expanded detention powers, and a relentless “law and order” agenda. The result has been an increase in the number of people entering custody while the state continues to ignore the underlying causes of criminalisation, including poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, child removal, racism, inadequate mental health support, and the ongoing impacts of colonisation.

No prison system can incarcerate its way out of social inequality.

Queensland’s watch houses were never intended to function as long-term imprisonment facilities. They were designed as short-term processing centres. Yet people are now routinely being held for extended periods while correctional facilities struggle to absorb growing prisoner numbers.

‘The government’s response has been to continue expanding criminalisation while failing to address the consequences of its own policies,’ said Debbie Kilroy.

This crisis demonstrates a simple reality: every new punitive law has a human cost.

That cost is borne by people sleeping on watch house floors, by families separated through incarceration, by communities subjected to increasing surveillance and policing, and by workers expected to operate in conditions that even police unions describe as unacceptable.

Sisters Inside is deeply concerned by warnings that overcrowding has created conditions where serious injury or death may occur. Queensland has a long and tragic history of deaths in custody. Governments should be acting to reduce the number of people entering custody, not creating the conditions that increase the risk of further harm.

The answer is not more prisons.

‘Queensland cannot build its way out of this crisis through endless prison expansion. Every prison built eventually fills. Every increase in policing powers generates more imprisonment. Every “tough on crime” announcement deepens the pressures already overwhelming the system,’ said Debbie Kilroy.

Instead, the government must invest in housing, healthcare, community-led responses to harm, culturally safe services, domestic and family violence prevention, and programs that address the social conditions that bring people into contact with the criminal legal system in the first place.

‘For decades, governments have ignored the evidence and pursued punishment as public policy. The overcrowding crisis unfolding in Queensland watch houses is the latest example of where that path leads. Queenslanders deserve better than a government that mistakes incarceration for safety, said Debbie Kilroy.

Further Quotes attributable to Debbie Kilroy, CEO, Sisters Inside:

‘The overcrowding occurring in Queensland watch houses is the direct result of political choices. You cannot continuously expand criminalisation, increase imprisonment and pass punitive laws without consequences. What we are seeing now is a system buckling under the weight of its own cruelty.’

“People are being held in degrading conditions because governments continue to invest in punishment instead of addressing poverty, homelessness, violence and inequality. Every person sleeping on a watch house floor is evidence of a policy failure.”

“The answer is not more prisons. The answer is fewer people being funnelled into custody in the first place.”

For further comment, please contact Debbie Kilroy on 0419 762 474.