Accused people smugglers can be held in detention for three to nine months before formal charges are laid, and their status as adults or children raised, a parliamentary committee has been told.
The Northern Territory Government lodged a submission with a committee looking into the incarceration of Indonesian minors in Australian prisons, saying that once formal charges are laid, suspected people smugglers are sent to adult jails to await trial. But this can take up to nine months, it said.
The NT Government said 36 Indonesians were serving sentences at Darwin Correctional Centre, the youngest of whom was 20.
But, it said, the government had knowingly kept four people-smuggling suspects in custody in Darwin Correctional Centre, alongside Indonesian adult offenders in 2000.
At that time it was deemed appropriate to house the young people with other Indonesian adults for ‘‘cultural reasons.’’
The committee will hold hearings later this month, and is currently taking submissions, to establish whether any Indonesian children remain in adult prisons, and to explore compensating minors who have been charged (contrary to current government policy).
On Friday, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon announced a review into 28 cases of Indonesians suspected to have been minors when they arrived in Australia had been completed.
She said seven more Indonesian people smuggling crew members who are suspected to be children would be released from adult prisons and sent back to Indonesia. It brought the number returned to Indonesia since the start of the inquiry to 15.
“This is not a pardon,’’ Ms Roxon said. ‘‘These individuals crewed people smuggling vessels that came to Australia, all of them went to court and were convicted of that offence.
“This is a decision to give these individuals the benefit of the doubt about their age when intercepted, after considering further information that was not earlier available.”
Her spokesman said for privacy reasons, that information would not be released.
But Ms Roxon stressed that it was government policy to release from custody any crew members who were thought to be younger than 18.
The government established the review after the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Indonesian Government raised concerns that children were being locked up in adult jails.
Of the 28 cases reviewed, 15 young people were been released from prison early over reasonable doubt they were adults when they arrived in Australia. Another two crew members were released early on parole, three completed their non-parole periods and eight remain in prison, with no evidence found to support their claims they were minors when they arrived in Australia.
The Western Australian-based Indonesia Institute said minors who had been incarcerated in adult jails should be financially compensated for their detention, and recommended that adult crew-members should be released on ‘‘bail’’ within the Indonesian community in Australia while their age is determined.
The Indonesian Institute claims that young children and adult fisherman in remote parts of Indonesia have been targeted by smuggling syndicates.
‘‘The current law as applied in Australia therefore treats these fishing people - by definition - as people smugglers,’’ the institute said.
‘‘As a result two completely unacceptable outcomes have occurred: adult fisherman [sic] are jailed as people smugglers, leaving behind families with no income or means of existence [and] children - as young as 13 years of age - are working on these boats and upon arrival into Christmas Island the children are treated as ‘adults’ until such time their ages [sic] is confirmed.’’
But a spokesman for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship said authorities did everything possible to establish the age of boat arrivals.
‘‘The department collects initial bio-metric data upon arrival to Christmas Island, and if an individual is found to be a minor they are held in alternate places of detention.’’The Australian Psychological Society said detaining children ‘‘accentuates developmental risks among young people, threatens identity development and is associated with poor mental health and wellbeing outcomes’’.