A NAIDOC Week edition of Q&A has debated the efficiency of punitive "tough love" models against youth rehabilitation in community programmes.

Dylan Voller, who last year was at the centre of the Don Dale youth detention controversy, asked the panel why juvenile offenders were locked up instead of rehabilitated through community programmes.

"Why can't we have more detainees from a juvenile centre to go there where they can learn, instead of going from a cell with no rehabilitation?" he asked.

William Tilmouth, the founder of not-for-profit organisation Children's Ground, said preventative measures, rather than "tough love" policy, needed to be implemented.

"The trouble is, with the way things are funded, we tend to throw all the money after the damage is done. There's nothing helping to work on the prevention of what's happening downstream," he said.

"We, forever and a day, are the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. That's where the crisis goes to — not the preventative model, but the curative model. We need to be at the preventative model upstream."

Sorry, this video has expired Children's Ground founder William Tilmouth says funding needs to go toward prevention

Federal MP Bob Katter condemned the "unjust" treatment of children and vowed his party would "shortly" announce an appropriate policy to tackle youth detention.

"There's going to be no more of this stupidity," he said.

"The cost of a child in detention in Queensland is $580,000 a year. We put in a wild kid and we get back a professional criminal. 'Oh, jeez, that was great achievement'.

"Putting a kid in a steel cage like an animal — after going on a joy-ride with his big brother because he wasn't game not to — seems to me unfair and unjust."

Labor spokesman for Indigenous health Warren Snowdon said the NT Government supported the Bush Mob rehabilitation program, designed to help young offenders to rebuild their life.

"The type of rehabilitation service is pretty unique to Central Australia, I might say. It's something which, as a model, has proven to be very, very effective," he said.

"The punitive models just doesn't work. Locking kids up is not the answer.

"But you can, if you're part a team, like in Bush Mob, give them an opportunity to accept trust. It's a very different way of dealing with young people than has been traditionally the case."

But Dale McIver, Tourism Central Australia's chair, said "tough love" was required in some situations.

"Locking some kids up — I think there does need to be some tough love sometimes in some situations where these kids have done some pretty horrible, pretty bad things," she said.

"But I also think there is a really great opportunity to get out there and teach these kids. Teach them some life skills that they can bring in to employment."