Queensland might be breaching UN conventions on children's rights and torture because of the number of ten- and eleven-year olds locked up in the state's jails.

"This flies in the face of the Convention on the Rights of the Child," said Claire Mallinson, international director of the rights group Amnesty International.  "And these are little kids, who most of them are probably thinking about their first sleepover, not being sent to a detention centre.  So the fact that Queensland is topping the table is something they need to address, and need to address straight away."

Amnesty International reviewed a thousand pages of documents on the alleged abuse and mistreatment of children in detention, and determined that no other state is locking up 10 and 11-year-old children at the rate of Queensland.  It's also the only state to lock-up 17-year olds in adult facilities.  And Indigenous children are over-represented.  The group says that on an average day in 2015, 89 percent of the children in the Townsville centre were Indigenous.

Then there are questionable practices, such as requiring young girls to lift their breasts and young boys to lift their genitals prior to squatting – even though practices of squatting and lifting are prohibited in adult prisons.  Eight Indigenous children were held in isolation for ten days "in near-continuous cell confinement - approximately 22 hours a day" in Townsville centre.  The facility consequently has a high rate of children attempting self harm.