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While there are many occasions where police officers will need to detain children who havecommitted offences or who are at risk of coming to harm, holding them in the cells at policelockups can rarely if ever be justified. In many cases, doing so breaches the police’s own standingorders and perhaps legislation. Apart from the most exceptional circumstances (and that surelycannot be 61% of the time in WA!) it breached Recommendation 242 of the Royal Commissioninto Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (submission 686 page 4).In WA detention in police cells is often not related to criminal matters at all. In theKimberley region over 50% of juveniles detained in police cells were there because ofalcohol use (ALSWA submission 127 page 334 referring to Crime Research Centreresearch). Public drunkenness is not a criminal offence in WA, although police retain thepower to detain intoxicated persons. In addition, the Inquiry was told that the YoungOffenders Act 1994 (WA) permits too much discretion to police officers by failing toplace a positive onus on them to find alternatives to police cells when a young person isintoxicated (ALSWA submission 127 page 347). 1The Convention on the Rights of the Child article 37(c) requires the separation ofjuveniles from adults when young people are deprived of their liberty (see also ICCPRarticle 10(2)(b)). Article 37(c) of CROC also requires that every child is to be treated in amanner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age. TheCommonwealth Government submitted a reservation on the relevant sections of bothtreaties, 2 arguing that geography makes total segregation difficult to achieve and thatresponsible authorities should have the discretion to ‘determine whether it is beneficialfor a child or juvenile to be imprisoned with adults’ (quoted by Aboriginal and TorresStrait Islander Social Justice Commissioner 1996 on page 205). The available empiricalevidence strongly suggests that the ‘discretion’ disadvantages Indigenous young people.Juvenile detention centresThe detention of Aboriginal youth is a form of child removal. This cannot be denied or ignored.Incarceration and its ensuing deprivation of liberty is a destructive and dehumanising experience(ALSWA submission 127 page 340).Concern about the over-representation of Indigenous young people in detentioncentres developed from the early 1980s. Most of the research was State-based, reflectingthe nature of separate juvenile justice jurisdictions across the nation. There was greatdifficulty in deriving comparable national data on Indigenous over-representation.Indeed, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody noted, ‘At no level ofthe criminal justice system is statistical information more inadequate than it is withrespect to juvenile offenders’ (National Report 1991 Volume 2 page 254). Althoughacknowledging the difficulties of interpreting the available data, there was a perceptionthat the over-representation of Indigenous young people was increasing (National Report1991 Volume 2 page 263).Some of the data provided to the Inquiry indicate the upward trend in the