The West Australian Police Commissioner says incarcerating fine defaulters in watch houses is "inhumane", as the inquest into the death of Julieka Dhu begins.
The 22-year-old Aboriginal woman died in August last year, after complaining about feeling unwell while locked up for days at South Hedland Police Station for not paying fines.
Speaking at the WA Police Union conference on Monday, which is also the first day of Ms Dhu's inquest, Karl O'Callaghan said it was inhumane to keep someone for days in a cell consisting of just a mattress on a plinth and a toilet.
"No facilities whatsoever. Nowhere to sit, nowhere to write, nothing else but laying on the floor for two, three or four days," he told the conference.
Mr O'Callaghan told reporters at the conference a different system for managing fine defaulters was required, including putting them straight into prisons where the facilities were designed for longer holdings.
"But there may be other alternatives available," he said.
Mr O'Callaghan said keeping people in watch houses for days was significantly risky.
"There's really no place to sit, there's no place to work, there's no place to stretch out and do anything at all," he said.
"I think it is just simply inappropriate. It is simply not right."
He said police were commanded to arrest someone once a warrant of commitment was issued for non-payment of fines.
"There is an arrangement after some days in regional Western Australia to move longer term people out of watch houses into the corrective services system, but, generally, it means they could be in a police watch house for up to four days," he said.
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