What it does
The Children (Detention Centres) Act 1987 (the Act) establishes a self-contained statutory regime for the detention of children and young people in New South Wales who would otherwise be held in adult correctional facilities. At its core, the legislation does three things: it authorises the creation and operation of specialised youth detention centres (Part 2), prescribes the legal status, treatment and discipline of persons on remand or subject to control within those centres (Part 3), and overlays a comprehensive suite of post-detention mechanisms including parole, review panels, victim notification and information exchange (Parts 4B–4C and 5).
Section 4 states the objects in plain terms: to ensure that young people on remand or subject to control are reintegrated into the community as soon as possible as law-abiding citizens, that sufficient resources are available to achieve that reintegration, and that family relationships are preserved or developed. Subsection 4(2) then imposes two overriding administrative principles: the welfare and interests of the young person must be given paramount consideration, and the only punishment that may be imposed for an offence is the punishment handed down by the sentencing court. These objects are not aspirational window-dressing; they are mandatory considerations that courts and administrators must apply when exercising any function under the Act (see, for example, the duty imposed on the Secretary by s 14(1) and the parole decision-making framework in s 46).
The Act creates two primary classes of detainee. A “person on remand” is defined in s 3(1) by reference to the Bail Act 2013 and includes children charged before the Children’s Court who have not been granted bail, as well as certain older accused persons committed to the Minister’s control. A “person subject to control” is a person committed to the Minister’s control by a detention order made under the or transferred from a correctional centre under s 10. Both classes must ordinarily be detained in a detention centre declared by the Minister under s 5(1). The only statutory exceptions are short-term police cell detention pending first court appearance (s 9(3)–(4)), transfers of older or high-risk detainees to correctional centres (ss 28, 28A–28BA), and escorted absences or medical removals (ss 23A, 24, 25).