Could the silver bullet for Australia’s youth crime crisis have been under our nose this entire time?

One global leader in youth custodial facilities thinks so.

David McGuire, the CEO of international not-for-profit organisation the Diagrama Foundation, said a centre his organisation oversees in Spain has slashed the rate of re-offending in youths.

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McGuire was in Australia touring detention centres in 2018 when riots broke out at Australia’s notorious youth detention centre, Don Dale.

The reputation of that very centre prompted the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory, which pointed to a European model as a potential solution.

“In the centres that we run in Spain, we have about 82 per cent integrating in the community. Eighteen per cent will re-offend,” McGuire told 7NEWS Spotlight.

In the centres, the “re-offending rate” that generally dominates headlines in Australia isn’t used as a measure of success.

Conversely, it’s the “reintegration rate”, a measure of children who walk out of the gates and become law-abiding citizens.

In Spain, McGuire said that’s four out of every five children. In Australia, it’s believed to be one in every 20.

The centres host children who have committed violent offences, McGuire said.

“All sort of crime that you can imagine,” he said.

“Violence is the common in all of them. I mean, violence is something that has been increasing and, I will say ... that the crimes that I saw in Australia are a little bit less than what we will see in Spain or England or other places.

“It’s less violence, because what I saw in Australia was more breaking in.”

McGuire says the downfall in Australian centres is that they’re built with only two objectives in mind, — preventing violence and preventing escapees.

“If you go to our system centres ... what you will see are young people engaging with adults in their objective, and their objective is rehabilitation.

“When you go to Australia in the centres, you will see that the kids are the ones who decide what to do in a way.

“It’s like, do they go to school if they want, do they have lunch or dinner if they want, do they go to sleep if they want?

“Then there is not an adult engaging with them.”

Queensland police last month marked the first anniversary of a specialised task force targeting youth crime in high-risk areas by declaring the crackdown is working.

Almost 1200 kids were charged with more than 4000 offences including robbery, sexual assault and possessing drugs or weapons in Taskforce Guardian’s first year.

It was established amid a community outcry, comprising a rapid response team of specialist investigators and youth justice workers who help local police in hot spots.

Most of the charged children were serious repeat offenders, Acting Assistant Commissioner Andrew Massingham said.

“We’ve taken a hard line ... particularly in Townsville, the Darling Downs and Mount Isa where we see people re-offend,” he said.

Eleven of the state’s 15 police districts had reported a decrease in youth offending following 71 task force deployments across the state.

The other four districts were not revealed, with police yet to target them.

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