I agree with o sung wu's view that there is no easy way to handle this type of teenager. Seeing the use of tear gas may make us uncomfortable, but no one was injured. There were no soft surfaces to tackle the teenager into. If the guards had to manhandle him, someone could easily have gotten hurt. Those wanting tear gas banned need to own the consequences.

Aiden might be right when he claims that the wrong people were employed. If so, governments need to ask if prisons are struggling to recruit or struggling to retain staff. Are they paid enough? Are they all quitting for the same reason? Alternatively, the staff might be decent people who are pushed too far. Four corners didn't want to tell us what happened before the guards lost their temper and it might put their behaviour in another context.

Dear o sung wu,

This evening I spoke to my cousin who is a police trainer.

He related an incident where he had a group of SO outside a cell ready to deal with an uncooperative top-level prisoner. He managed to talk the crim into being cuffed without needing force but said if it had come to the group entering the cell then the CTV footage would have been confronting to the general public.

However his take on the behaviour of the staff involved in the NT was very negative. He could easily understand how things can get to that point where those involved thought what they did was reasonable but in modern professional policing they would not have passed the muster by any measure.

He acknowledged that quite often detention staff are just that, concerned with managing detention. He felt that in most cases police are possibly better equipped and more prepared to attempt to de-escalate situations than said staff.

He said in Victoria there is a real emphasis on using minimal force. It produces better outcomes for both police members and those they interact with. Spitting hoods are not used instead face protection in the form of glasses is employed by officers. There is very little tolerance for those who do spit.

He commented there needs to be recognition that actions like throwing a 10 year old around by the neck just sows the seeds for more intransigence and violence to be directed at those who interact with lad in the future when he is physically stronger.

One of hardest parts of the job he said is seeing his and others efforts to help people especially juveniles onto a different path having only temporary impacts because of the limited time and resources available.

My conversation with him strengthened my conviction that better training and equipment would have made a huge difference with what occurred in the NT and that toxic cultures can develop within any organisation or institution which often takes radical action to correct.

My hope is that the Royal commission fills that role.

Hi there BENK...

Thank you for your comments and for adducing AIDEN'S thoughts, where he wondered whether the NT government had in fact 'employed the wrong people' to properly control these unruly youths in custody. Interestingly, the same question is often raised about the quality of our police ?

Look BENK, I honestly don't know what qualities, qualifications and special skills, are needed to successfully accommodate these difficult and often violent youths. Obviously 'buckets' of patience, maturity, and perhaps a massive amount of good humour would make the job a little easier to tolerate ?

Personally, I rather rely on a chemical agent (CN or CS) to quell disturbances with these youths, rather than seeking another force option or 'box on' with one of the self-proclaimed 'heavies' among the group. But the problem being BENK, Chemical Agents strike a sense of fear and loathing into the general population mainly out of ignorance, especially when deployed upon youths in detention.

I must confess to you, I really don't know what the best method is in handling these little 'toughs', without turning them into a contemporary version of 'Attila the Hun' ?

' Even if there are some people beyond redemption, it's certain that not everyone who you expect to be beyond redemption really is.'

I don't think anyone is beyond redemption Aiden but the likelihood of it happening is severely diminished by pandering to the socialist ideology where no one is held to account except guards doing a job no one else would be prepared to do.

The behaviour of leftist protestors where they justify their thuggish behaviour while spitting on and assaulting police says it all. They are then the first to scream when force is used to stop people hurting others and themselves.

Hi there STEELEREDUX...

Your cousin had the need, in company with others, to confront an uncooperative 'top level' prisoner, and managed to calm him sufficiently and handcuff him without further incident. Often it's the case. Many a hard head will not make a stink, when confronted with overwhelming force of numbers. They're too 'boob' wise, to waste their energy in a lost cause.

However, many of these young blokes, keen to develop their reputations, will bung on a decent stink purely to show his peer group how tough they are, by assaulting a couple of screws or filthy jacks.

Unfortunately, they don't understand, when ultimately they hit the adult 'go slow', they soon become fresh white arse for the 'real' (adult) gaol heavies, in which to pleasure themselves !

In the juvenile detention centres, the 'tough guys' do everything possible to enhance their reputation(s). Brawling with screws, knowing the Officers are so heavily restricted in their response, as well as government; medical and media scrutiny. Spiting, threatening staff and their families, and abusing Officers. They know, they can get away with such a lot, when classed as young offenders, within the system.

Ultimately, when they progress to an adult gaol, their reputations simply disappear. The only thing that may help them, is to enrol in a full time educational programme for young offenders, by which they're accommodated in a more progressive ('boys wing') within the gaol. There's a greater degree of safety, due to the more stringent supervision of inmates.

Otherwise these juvenile offenders are taken under the wing of a gaol heavy. In return, the 'heavy' offers protection. But the quid pro quo, the 'heavy' can avail himself of a bit of clean white (virgin) arse, with which to amuse himself with.

After which this shamefully abused young person, (former juvenile tough guy), becomes a much harder, more vicious criminal. Any chance he may've had, at rehabilitating himself and achieving some degree of social redemption, becomes even more improbable, in fact pretty well inconceivable. Yet another utterly damaged young man, is consigned to a lifetime of violent crime.

I'm sorry STEELEREDUX...

You mentioned with better 'training and equipment' the events we've seen in the NT might not be repeated again hopefully ?

What sort of training would be envisaged ? And what further equipment would be appropriate ? Please don't misunderstand me STEELEREDUX, handling violent young offenders; safely, effectively, legally, and socially acceptably, is the $64,000 question. And without doubt, probably the bane of most Prison Officials and Police, charged with dealing with these vulnerable but (some) very violent and extremely difficult young people.