The police are doing a fairly good job. It's the courts / politicians that are refusing to apply sentencing that keep the community safe. I can see the sense of trying to rehab first time offenders, but repeat offenders should feel the full force of the justice system. The 13-15yo get into it because they see the 16-17yo get off scot-free.
There are many similarities between this and the people smuggler issue. The softy softly approach just facilitated the behaviour. It was only when a hard line approach was taken, that the behaviour stopped dead.
