Melbourne CBD Incident

[Lods]

So if the problem cannot be cured upgrading societal skills, where does the "Kennett" rational come from to close all the asylums, I assume it was primarily a fiscal decision that comes at the expense of the general public?

Lods, posters will happily argue the causes with you, that is for sure. But from your experience, what is the fundamental solution?

I gather allowing troubled youth to run riot in detention is not going to make things better. That probably just reinforces bad behavior.

Sending kids to big persons prison won't be the answer either, that will just institutionalise them long term.

Where should we spend the smart money?

We had a similar situation occur in NSW many years ago.
At one stage the Community Services Department ran both State Ward homes and Juvenile detention Centres.
I worked in both.
The State Ward homes catered for a range of kids so that we had specialist centres for intellectually disabled, emotionally disturbed and just basically neglected kids...To tell you the truth they weren't great places and there are a number of horror cases that were no doubt looked at during the commission into institutional abuse...however they did serve a purpose in that these kids (Wards), especially the ones with emotional disturbance, were kept separate from the juvenile detention system.

Like with the Kennett situation these were gradually closed down, replaced in some part by smaller group homes...but large numbers of these kids then began showing up in the Juvenile Detention system.
Many may have ended up there anyway but their introduction into that system was fast tracked.

What to do?
Separate them, get them before they become entrenched in the JJ system. Provide the kids with emotional disturbance or more serious psychiatric disorders with a more suitable and hopefully productive program....but that costs money.
So the question then becomes one of cost effectiveness. 
At the very least trial a few.

Look, Juvenile Detention centres are streets ahead of what they used to be in terms of providing educational and rehabilitative opportunities for kids....but they're being called upon to do too much if they're also being asked to function as mental health facilities.
Mixing the populations is detrimental to both groups.

(and get some bloody razor wire on the roof of your JJ centres to stop the kids climbing all over them.....they'll fall and hurt themselves!)