Your right Suse, if these boys were from a Sydney private school and treated that way there would be no RC just a few hangings. Both Adam Giles and his scum bucket of a minister John Elferink should resign immediately.
Can't wait for the forums 'Usual Suspects' to rush to the defense of the rabid right NT Country Liberal government, with calls of "law and order". The NT government was well aware of what was going on in the juvenile justice system. The fact that most of the children involved are Aboriginal might have a lot to do with their lack of action.

Thank You for your responses and I am relieved
that a Royal Commission is to follow. Hopefully
this will result in action being taken and not
just in reports and more delays and excuses.
People need to
be held to account for their actions. These draconian
evil centres
need to be closed down immediately - and the staff
responsible need to be sacked. No excuses.

I am intersested to know what people think should be done to teenagers who have committed numerous ádult crimes and then are bent on causing havoc in whatever institution they are in. This includes self harm, suicide and harm to others and complete destruction of property. I have met many of these kids and feel very sorry for them. Personally I think the aboringal community has a lot to answer for. These kids are brought into the world and not taken care of despite bucket loads of money being given out. Many of them are generational criminals unfortunatley starting at a very young age. Amother 'stolen 'generation as abhorrent as it is to some might reduce the problem. PLenty of fingers being pointed with no answers except another enquiry.

I saw the promo but didn't watch it as it seemed to be just another ABC bashing of Australia and Australians. The ABC is so biased against everyone except it's favourite lefties (they would not have gone into this if Barnacle Bill was PM), that they have lost the ability to speak to 70% of Australians, who might well have been as disgusted and upset by whatever went on as were last night's viewers. The more the ABC ignores the majority of Australians, the less effective it becomes. Don't put too much on a Royal Commission.

Very distressing, but just the visible tip of the iceberg.

Once inside, of course children should be treated properly and sensitively. But surely there must be an investigation of why so many (presumably Aboriginal?) kids in the NT are confined in the first place. And that has to provoke the questions of why and how so many kids work their way through the system from the commission of crimes, to arrest, to trial, to incarceration. And why the committing of crimes in the first place ?

But once inside, it seems that little is done for the kids but to let them eke out each day bored sh!tless, or maybe playing footy. So they will come out no better prepared for social living than they were when they went in, except perhaps a bit more crime-savvy.

100-150 years ago, the various state systems recognised the links between poverty and crime (such as they are) by lumping destitute kids with those who had committed crimes, in 'Industrial Schools', or Reformatories. Ghastly places by all accounts, but some had training programs in place, so that there was the chance that kids could come out with at least some skills. One suspects that such 'programs' were little more than crap-job work programs.

My dear old grandmother was born in the Sculcoates Workhouse, Hull, in 1902. Barnado's took her out when she was maybe seven or eight, put her and another girl in a foster home in Kent, and ensured that she gained a trade, namely bookkeeping. She did that, and other goy work for the strictly observant family of Lord Samuels, founder of Shell and former Lord Mayor of London.

But back to the NT, 2016: my bet is that most of those kids are illiterate. So what good would be achieved if they come out still illiterate, or no better educated/trained than they were when they went in ? How about this for a crazy idea:

[TBC]

[continued]

* that such institutions offer rigorous literacy, numeracy and technical education programs to all inmates, on the condition that they would be released as soon as they finished a course AND that they enrol in specific courses equivalent to half the length of their sentences.

So, let's say a kid is in for two years, BUT if he finishes a one-year course, he's out. If he's in for a very serious crime, incurring say ten years, then he finishes five years of study and he's free.

Of course, courses should be graded so that nobody can do the same course (it happens) or the same-level course over and over. It's onward and upwards, or stay in the playground with your footy.

We can curse the darkness, or we can light a candle, as Marx wrote in Thesis 11.

Joe