Children in Northern Ireland have been detained on remand for stealing a bottle of whiskey or taking a collection box from the counter of a shop, Dr Linda Moore told the conference on juvenile justice. Neither of these offences would result in a custodial sentence from the court, she said, but the children suffered imprisonment.
This runs counter to international standards on the rights of the child, which state that children should be detained only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest period of time.
Dr Moore is the researcher who examined the rights of children in custody for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. The report criticised the overuse of remand.
She said the emphasis in the Northern Ireland system was on control rather than care of the children.
The regime, especially in the Lisnevin detention centre, was difficult, and some of the children were very frightened and cried for their mothers on their first night in custody.
There was too much use of sanctions such as early bed-times, which were unsuitable for children who had shown suicidal tendencies.
The principles of international human rights standards in this area, especially the paramount nature of the interests of the child, their right to be heard, and their right not be discriminated against on the basis of religion, race or gender, were inadequately reflected in law, policy and practice in Northern Ireland, she said.
Mr Rob Allen, from the Youth Justice Board of England and Wales, said that the Labour government in the UK had introduced a lot of improvements in the juvenile justice system, but the framework was still not the right one.
It was still the case that young people were engaging with the criminal justice system far too early, he said.
A restorative justice scheme had been introduced, but this takes a lot of time, and the Labour government had pledged to reduce the amount of time between a young person's arrest and the case being dealt with.
"Government policy is pushing in two different directions that are not easy to reconcile. This characterises a lot of the reforms," Mr Allen said.