look the answer is easy all those bleeding hearts, quit their jobs, and become guards at we will all see how long it takes before they are using the spit hood.

Part of the problem is culture? Culture that sees property as community property and yours if you're cheeky enough to confiscate it? People are over having their cars stolen by joy riders and smashed or burnt before they're recovered? And folk are also over the break ins and petty theft?

That said, a hungry and all but abandoned kid, left almost entirely to his own devices will steal a candy bar or almost anything able to be slipped into a convenient pocket? These kids are the kids we see in lord of the flies? And need a very different rehabilitation and reeducation model to turn them into model citizens, future doctors, lawyers and law enforcement officers? My approach would be a boot camp, walkabout and taught bush tucker survival skills?

And modeled on some of the tough love simple reward based examples seen elsewhere? Where some treasured by kids rewards are earned through being a model citizen and giving a helping hand to the new chum? Walkabouts would likely need to be conducted in fairly unforgiving country that makes cooperation essential for survival, comfort and EARNED reward?

Reward can include things like access to a swimming pool football boots and a footy or a roast dinner? It's not hard but requires patience perseverance and a team approach that enables a firm hand on the tiller at all times! And is accompanied by warnings like, if you think I'm tough, wait until Moriarty takes you on a fifty mile forced march!

It is tough love and needs to be dispensed by folks who mean what they say and say what they mean and all and any reward has to be earned and deserved! And when that is the case accompanied by lavish praise in front of their peers so that they learn a different and better way! And need to stay the course until it is thoroughly inculcated as a replacement behavior model!

Violence was never the answer given violence only ever begets more violence! We need a thorough cleanout of officialdom up there and replace them with adults!
Alan B.

There is no "dentention disease"; there is a young hoodlum disease. Cobber the Hound has a good suggestion for the "bleeding hearts",

ttbn,

"There is no 'dentention disease'"
Yes there is. Detaining people in cruel conditions causes more problems than it solves. This doesn't mean crime shouldn't be dealt with — of course it should, and in many cases detention should be part of the solution. But we must improve the cnditions in the prisons, and recognise that merely locking people up is not the answer, and cruel conditions are never justified.

As for Cobber's uncharacteristically batty suggestion, having unsuitable people working as screws is part of the problem.

I don't know why they don't just put these rebellious incarcerated into solitary confinement. Isolation can make one reflect on why or what they may or may not have done to justify their treatment...

Keeps the staff in a "hands off" scenario so unlikely that accusations or video footage of torture will simply not happen in the first place.

Dear Cobbler the Hound.

They don't use spit hoods in NSW and Vic and only a modified form in WA. Proper training and proper equipment is a no brainer. Why instead do you seem to be insisting they continue to be used in the NT without criticism?