Wow, great idea!

Take a bunch of disaffected unemployed kids off the street for a few years, teach them how to kill with their bare hands and them dump them back into society.

It's an even worse option than transporting them across the country and sending them down the mines.

Most aren't there because they choose to be. Employers don't want to pay to give the young new skills when they can just make the older employees work years longer or bring in people from overseas when needed.

But it will be "everyone" being robbed of their choice,
King Hazza,
No not all. Everyone will get the opportunity to make a far more informed choice with the benefit of having been exposed to the responsibilities of life. Don't forget, we have individual rights slogans blasted at us from every direction but I have yet to hear something about individual responsibility.
Wobbles,
teach them how to kill with their bare hands.
A perfect & classical example. Had you attended NS you'd never make a statement like that. We advocate National Service not military Service. That is the prime difference between understanding & not understanding.

Youth of today are out of control. There needs to be a system of accountability. So a national service scheme that involves lifes skills, as well as an informed and practical experience that they could one day be called upon to defend our very existence.
Elder people who say youth violations are very low, low to what, should there be any youth violations.

King Hazza's thoughts reflect mine on this so I won't repeat his already great comments on this subject.

For those young people who are unsure about signing up to a longer contract with the Defence services or thinking about a career in Defence, can always get a taste through the ADF Gap Year program - which is purely voluntary.

http://www.defencejobs.gov.au/education/gapyear/

Wobbles:
"Take a bunch of disaffected kids off the street for a few years, teach them how to kill with their bare hands and then dump them back into society"

A bunch of "disaffected kids" on the streets would most probably be heavily involved in street crime, drug use or dealing, or even muggings and the like! Where do these "kids" go from there, except down the sewers eventually ending up on the morticians slab, to become another social sad statistic.

National Service can give some of these kids who are receptive enough to the process, the opportunity to extricate themselves from a lifestyle of degradation and eventual premature death, whilst at the same time learning a basic set of values and trade skills that may have been out of reach due to their own particular environmental lifestyle, or of their own choosing.

The issue of kids learning to kill with their bare hands,..what is the difference between these kids and the other kids who join the Defence Forces and are taught the rudimentary skills of military survival?...Do we see these ex Defence Force members running amok and killing everyone who offends them?...I think not!

Maybe I shouldn't have used the term National Service. What I am advocating is a service to the nation which requires about-to-become-adult youths to be exposed to the realities of nation/society building & the associated responsibilities. What we've had for 35 years is a government sanctioned relaxation of individual responsibility which has resulted in the incredulous "everybody owes me" mentality of today. Can anyone (academic fruitcakes excepted) put up an argument against the validity of making individuals accepting responsibility for their actions ? If anyone can, let them put their hand-out earned money where their mouths are.
To survive as a reasonably functioning society we absolutely must have young people to engage in vital but unpopular activities so they realise how people are fed & clothed everyday day on this planet. Even more eye-opening will be the realisation of how we can afford the so often taken for granted luxury of compassion.