A/HRC/36/46/Add.2 criminal responsibility. Children should be detained only as a last resort, which certainly is not the case today for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Detention of those children has become so prevalent in certain communities that some parents referred to it as an achievement that none of their children has been taken into custody so far. Much more should be done to ensure that the detention of children remains the exception, rather than the norm. 78. If Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are detained, they should be treated with respect and dignity. As demonstrated by the ongoing investigation of the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory, there have been allegations of serious abuses, including violent strip-searches, teargassing, hooding and prolonged isolation committed against Aboriginal children in custody. 79. In both Bandyup prison and Cleveland Youth Detention Centre, the Special Rapporteur noted that persons on pretrial remand detention were held together with convicted persons, which raises serious concerns under article 10 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. She also found deeply troubling the presence of Aboriginal persons with cognitive impairment in detention without any support for their medical condition. The Special Rapporteur was furthermore concerned to learn that children aged 17 were still being held in adult prisons in Queensland. 80. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the recent announcement by the Government that Australia intends to ratify Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment before the end of 2017, which will require the establishment of a national system of independent and regular monitoring of all places of detention, a measure that the country is in dire need of. The Special Rapporteur visited the Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services in Western Australia, which offers a good model and should be replicated in other states and territories, with an added mandate to cover police custody. 81. Adequate and culturally appropriate health services in detention facilities are lacking and should be ameliorated by the targeted recruitment of Aboriginal health professionals. The Special Rapporteur furthermore recommends that more efforts be made to train and recruit Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander police, legal professionals and prison personnel. All non-indigenous staff should be trained in cultural sensitivity. 82. The focus urgently needs to move away from detention and punishment towards rehabilitation and reintegration. Locking up people costs tax payers vast amounts of money. For instance, the Special Rapporteur was told that detaining a child costs between $A170,000 and $A200,000 per year. Such funds should be allocated to prevention and reintegration. In that regard, the Special Rapporteur learned about local diversion initiatives, often referred to as justice reinvestment programmes, designed to address the causes of crime in specific communities. In Redfern, a suburb of Sydney, she visited the “Clean Slate Without Prejudice Programme”, which is run by an Aboriginal organization in collaboration with the police and has contributed to a significant decrease in the crime rate there over the past few years. Diversion programmes would significantly reduce incarceration rates if replicated across the country in consultation with local communities. 83. The Special Rapporteur was impressed with the Children’s Koori Court in Melbourne, which involves the participation of elders and respected persons from the Koori community in its procedures and aims to reduce imprisonment and recidivism. Such culturally sensitive processes could significantly reduce recidivism rates if extended to other jurisdictions. 84. The Special Rapporteur notes the report “Prison to Work”, endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments in December 2016, which provides valuable proposals for reintegration and places emphasis on the need for enhanced and culturally appropriate services, notably in the areas of employment, housing and welfare, following prison release, in order to reduce recidivism. She encourages the federal, state and territory governments to take concrete action and allocate funding to implement those proposals. 85. The high rates of incarceration were described to the Special Rapporteur as a tsunami affecting indigenous peoples with devastating consequences for concerned 14