Western Australia has the unenviable reputation of having one of the highest rates of youth incarceration in the country - beaten only by the Northern Territory.
And since January, the state's detainees have been locked up in an adult prison after a riot at their juvenile justice centre.
Advocates for youth justice reinvestment have long called for a better approach to reducing the number of children and teenagers locked up inside.
As Ryan Emery reports in the second of our special two-part series into the state's youth justice, they say the time to act is now.
In a house in Perth's eastern suburbs lives three-year-old Levi Mippy and his paternal grandmother Doris.
Levi is a victim of crime and is wheelchair bound.
His mother and her partner were jailed for four years for neglect after he mysteriously suffered serious injuries.
But thanks to some young people, many who committed their own crimes that left victims traumatised, he has a completely new backyard designed to help with his rehabilitation.
It has wide paths for his wheelchair, a large, tiered water feature for sound, and native plants to capture Levi's sense of smell.
The work was completed as part of what's called the Liveworks program.
Young offenders and kids at risk are taught the basics of the building industry over 20-weeks.
It's often an alternative to detention.
They learn to work in a team, with regular hours, and hopefully along the way reconnect with the wider community.
Levi's grandmother Doris Mippy supports the approach.
"Well, I think it's good because it makes the kids think, gives them a different option, a different approach to life. It puts something in and gets something out, which is what they'll get from doing stuff like this."
Most of the young participants are Aboriginal, and have been locked up - or are at risk of ending up inside.
They've never worked and they've grown up in highly dysfunctional environments.
Their pride and self-esteem were shattered a long time ago.
Lee Braithwaite is their trainer and says every participant brings their own challenges.
"In real life work, you run in a team, you've got to work in a team to get things done. And that's what we try to teach to these boys how it works within. A lot of these boys have never worked in teams before. Reporter: A lot of these boys haven't done much hard work either. No, they haven't. It's just a matter of starting off with small steps, and then leaping into a run, but slowly but surely we get there."
At a house around the corner from the Mippys, the Liveworks participants are landscaping another garden.
The home's occupant watches on from the kitchen as the boys get to work.
The Liveworks manager Sam Mesiti says trying to engage and rehabilitate these boys is often best done outside detention.
"If the problems have been created in the community, then they need to be dealt with in the community a lot earlier and we need to look at a lot broader attack plan, rather than incarcerating the kid. We need to start looking at why the young person's been involved in the behaviours he's been involved in. What is that we can do as a community to address that. So it is. It's about dealing with the problem in the community, and having the community becoming part of the solution rather than wanting to move the kid on to incarceration."
The state-government-supported program appears to be working.
19-year-old Jason was in detention for armed robbery and carjacking.
He says he didn't know what he was going to do after he got out, but then he met Sam Mesiti.
"Yeah, you feel like you come out and, it's like a rehabilitation course. You get rehabilitated back into the community. You get out of that institutionalized kind of feeling. So it helps you out a lot. They take it easy. It's not full on. They take it easy. Lead you into it."
Jason is now an apprentice carpenter.
It's a long journey from the child who was left at home alone for days and ended up in detention when he was 12.
Now he's reclaimed some of his pride and self-esteem - and a new perspective on his crimes.
"It was good. You can see the finished product. You can see that you did it and it's actually going somewhere. So you feel good about yourself that you can actually do it and you can use your skills to get a job. I've got a different mindset now. I think that some people could be in the same kind of circumstances, like even have it harder and they don't do what we do. They could struggle, but still be good. Do the right thing. Now I think about the people I victimized. Some people could be having traumatic symptoms. Like getting terrorized and stuff. And it's not good to live like that."
19-year-old Michael grew up in a similar environment and had family problems but he had the support of others, including local youth workers.
When he fell off the rails, that support rallied around him and avoided jail.
He did the Liveworks program and is now working on the mines - earning big money, and working long hours.
"I've seen with a few boys, they don't really change. It's, they get used to it, I suppose. Used to being locked up and it doesn't bother them anymore. So I don't know. Something else has to happen. It's just not working."
Sam Mesiti says young offenders and their families need whole-of-government support including accommodation options.
The former youth custodial officer says they can support the participants during the week, but after the weekend, they're often left picking up the pieces the next Monday or Tuesday.
"One of the most frustrating things is that you know that if you can keep kids away from some of the drugs and alcohol and negative behaviours that you can start to see the real young man there. So for us, it's about trying to get the supports in place where there's some drug and alcohol support in place where we can link up with the families and get some support there. But sadly some of these guys don't live with families or it's a generational issue where there's drinking and drug taking so for us it's let's see what we can get through over these twenty weeks. Let's work with it on a Monday and Tuesday and hopefully the young person will get to a point where he realises he needs to make those changes and then we move on from there."
