Youths protesting on the roof of the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre in Parkville on March 7, 2016. Credit:Jesse Marlow "Get out of my house," Phillip screamed. Behind him, his six-year-old son herded his toddler brother into their parents' bedroom. Phillip's wife thrust a cricket bat into his hands. If the men tried to get to his wife and children, he'd use it, he decided. "The keys. Give us the car keys," the youth yelled. Phillip's wife, who was on the phone to police, told her husband to just do what they said. The men left in Phillip's late-model sports car.

Riot police at the Malmsbury youth detention centre last week. Credit:Paul Jeffers Two hours later, after he'd talked to police, Phillip found himself suddenly shaking. What plagued Phillip was the boldness, the sense of impunity, displayed by the young intruder – who police suspect to be a 16-year-old from a Sudanese background linked to a number of aggravated home invasions. Apex gang members were among those who rioted in Melbourne's city centre last year. Credit:twitter.com/@russmulry The offender's youth, in Phillip's eyes, does not make him any less culpable.

"He's terrorised my family and that will stay with us for life." says Phillip, who asked for his name to be changed. "The kids didn't even want Santa to come in the house for Christmas." Apex gang members rioting outside Flinders Street station. Credit:@russmulry, via Twitter We have to teach them basic life skills first, such as if someone uses your Texta you can't punch him in the nose. Ian Lanyon At some point, Phillip believes, the youth will be remanded into custody. If that happens, he will be entering a youth justice system in crisis, and at the centre of a political storm. Victoria has seen a series of riots in the state's youth jails, teens rampaging through Moomba​ and featuring in brazen, violent crimes. On Wednesday, 15 inmates broke out of the Malmsbury youth detention centre and started a series of wild car chases and a night of crime.

Suspected members of the Apex gang in the CBD. Credit:3AW In this heated environment, the state government is trying to shape a response in a complex and sensitive policy area while fighting for its political survival. Like the government, the opposition, and many Victorians, Phillip believes the 16-year-old who broke into his house should be subject to a tougher legal regime. Children's Commissioner Liana Buchanan has launched an investigation. Credit:Simon Schluter "He might be 16 but he is committing adult crimes and he deserves to be punished like an adult. Barwon [prison] is the perfect place for him," he says.

The politics dictate a tough-on-crime approach that blames the young offenders, while the experts warn that junking what once made Victoria a national leader in youth offender education and rehabilitation will ultimately make the problem worse. Teen rioters pose for selfies on roof of Parkville youth jail with police in the background. Those inside the system say successive governments, including Labor, have failed to act on repeated warnings about major problems in the system that have fuelled the current crisis.

THE FIRST OVERHAUL Damaged caused by the riot at the Parkville Youth Justice Centre last March.

In 2010, deputy ombudsman John Taylor and several of his trusted staff paid a visit to the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre in Parkville. What he saw horrified him. "I personally visited there and I was appalled at the squalor and the slovenly nature of how it was run," he says, in his first public interview since retiring from the ombudsman's office in 2014 to carry out high-level inquiries for state and international governments. Minister for Children Jenny Mikakos is under fire over the juvenile justice system. Credit:Paul Jeffers "I saw Parkville as being unfit for purpose and unable to meet the modern requirements to detain often large young men." Taylor wrote an explosive public report with Ombudsman George Brouwer that documented youth prisoners assaulted by staff and fellow clients and a staff culture that meant it was sometimes hard to differentiate sloppily dressed staff from inmates.

Riot police and dog handlers were called to the Parkville centre last November. Credit:ABC News The report prompted the appointment of Ian Lanyon, a bright ex-police inspector, to head the juvenile justice system under the auspices of the Department of Human Services (now known as the Department of Health and Human Services or DHHS). "We have to teach them basic life skills first, such as if someone uses your Texta you can't punch him in the nose," Lanyon said in a 2014 interview of the prisoners under his watch. Paramedics enter the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre in Parkville on November 14, 2016, after riots. Credit:Pat Scala "I've seen kids who can't even butter bread. They have lived in chaotic environments for years."

Lanyon set about reforming the DHHS workforce, hiring younger and tertiary-educated staff, ridding the system of what he viewed as bad habits and dead wood, introducing uniforms and a greater emphasis on rules and discipline. The entrance to Parkville youth justice centre under guard. Credit:Wayne Hawkins Another significant reform was the creation of a dedicated school, Parkville College, under the guidance of Victorian education guru Brendan Murray. In 2012, Murray's school began operating with five teachers. It now has 130. They are meant to teach young inmates for 36 hours a week all year, in a program designed to reform and rehabilitate. Lanyon and Murray appeared as visionaries – bold men riding in to fix a system in crisis. But change hasn't come easily. Police in full riot gear prepare to enter the Parkville youth centre. Credit:ABC News

Seven insiders, who have spoken to Fairfax Media despite the risk of losing their jobs, say the staffing and culture of the youth justice facilities under Lanyon's watch have been at breaking point for at least two years, plagued by inexperience, injuries and absenteeism. Staff have been king-hit, hospitalised, threatened with rape. The latest WorkSafe figures reveal that there have been 85 claims in the past two years. Since 2010, almost $10 million has been paid out to about 384 employees for stress or injury claims. Damaged caused to the ceiling of the Youth Justice Centre by rioters in March. AN ESCALATING PROBLEM On Friday January 6, as Victorians sweltered in 35 degree summer heat, a 15-year-old remanded in a steel-fenced wing of the Parkville Youth Justice Precinct decided to cause some trouble.

Teens climbed into the roof cavity and onto the roof in the March 7 riot. The alleged offender, who'd been arrested several weeks before in connection to a high-speed car chase, grabbed a security lanyard from around a DHHS staff member's neck and bolted. He used the pass to swipe into another room, then punched through the ceiling plaster and climbed into a roof cavity. The aftermath of a riot on March 7 where teenagers caused $120,000 in damages. Staff scrambled to respond as the young man began stomping on the roof and causing lights and plaster beneath his feet to splinter and shatter.

Within hours of the prisoner being talked down and placed in isolation, more trouble erupted. The next evening, a Saturday, as temperatures soared to 37 degrees, several young male prisoners bolted from a basketball court to the centre's pool, where they pushed over part of a fence and armed themselves with poles. The usual supervisor was on leave, so a relatively inexperienced staff member was initially overseeing the prisoners. Once again, young offenders headed into a roof cavity, from where they could access secure areas of the centre and wreak havoc. This time, police were called in and, after threats to use police dogs, the prisoners were arrested, with some placed into isolation. With tensions still high on the Sunday morning, the staff member responsible for running "remand north", the section of the facility where the trouble had erupted hours earlier, was a casual employee. This meant he had no access to the computer system holding information about the prisoners under his watch. He was flying blind about their backgrounds. "He was beside himself. This poor bugger was left in charge. He had a couple of other staff who were casuals," says a staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It's been like this for ages." LOCK-DOWNS AND BREAKDOWNS

Staff shortages, inexperience, absenteeism and casualisation led to the introduction of a controversial management tool: the lock-down. For some offenders, this may involve one hour in isolation, one hour out. Others might wake up at 8am, but aren't allowed out of their cell until lunch time. While the times vary, the system means prisoners can't get to classes or other structured programs. Experienced staff say that over time, this not only erodes their chances of rehabilitation but "makes them pissed off". "We have staffing issues that are not new, but have led to the practice of kids being locked in their rooms for extended periods for no reason that is connected to their behaviour," says Liana Buchanan, the Commissioner for Children and Young People. Isolation as punishment is prohibited under Victorian law, and according to the department, it should only be used when someone presents an immediate threat to safety. But with the system under so much strain, it is no longer seen as a last resort but increasingly being used as a management tool.

Many fear it is getting worse and Buchanan has launched a major investigation. "You lock 'em in a box and don't give them classes or programs because DHHS staff are calling in sick, what do you think is going to happen?" said one current staff member. These comments aren't coming from do-gooders in the system but staff who largely support a tough-on-crime approach. Frustrated staff are quitting, sometimes with no job to go to. The poor state of the building at Parkville has not helped. The ombudsmen's scathing 2010 assessment that squalid Parkville was not fit for purpose were backed up by subsequent and confidential post-riots reviews by former chief commissioner Neil Comrie and former NSW Juvenile Justice director Peter Muir.

Muir's damning May 2016 report, which was leaked to Fairfax Media this week, declared Parkville unsafe and warned that lock-downs and staff dysfunction were "increasing tension and contributing to the level of risk site". The Labor government announced this week a "fit for purpose high security" youth justice system with more beds. But it has been well aware of the problems for several years. FUDGING THE FIGURES Shortly after Labor won the 2014 election, veteran union secretary Karen Batt arranged a meeting with a senior minister. Parkville officials had gathered confidential information they alleged showed that assaults and other incidents involving staff and prisoners were being downplayed or under-reported. This had the effect, they claimed, of making the system appear to be functioning better than it was.

The politician was Jenny Mikakos​, the minister responsible for the juvenile system. Recently, she has become the subject of repeated opposition calls for her to resign. Mikakos grilled justice centre chief Ian Lanyon about the alleged data fudging: "I was very keen to explore the accuracy of those concerns," the minister told Fairfax Media. Supporters of Mikakos say that after winning the election, the minister and her department were justifiably consumed with fixing another problem in her portfolio, the state's broken child protection system. Detractors say that this has allowed Rome – or Parkville and Malmsbury – to keep quietly burning. In the wake of the latest unrest, the number of new inquiries is mounting. Ex-top cop Comrie has been called in again and is investigating the November 2016 Parkville riots while the state ombudsman is set to table yet another report on problems in the system. It's understood a DHHS official recently contacted Ombudsman Deborah Glass to allege a serious "kid-on-kid" assault had been improperly downplayed. The Commissioner for Children, Buchanan, is also understood to be frustrated that the department has delayed giving her vital information for her inquiry into lock-downs.

At least one senior departmental official has spoken to her to detail their concerns on the excessive use of isolation and lock-down and about whether it is being reported faithfully. "The lock-downs are killing the system," this official says. Juvenile justice expert Professor Mark Halsey, who has interviewed hundreds of juvenile offenders, says systemic failings that disrupt access to education and rehabilitation programs increase the risk of riots and prisoners leaving the system more dangerous than when they entered it. And he warns the lock-'em-down, tough on crime line can do "more harm than good". The former coalition government's changes to the Bail Act in 2013, for example, which made it an offence to break a condition of bail, suddenly filled the state's youth jails with often volatile teens waiting for court. Under the law (since repealed) young people languished for hundreds of days in substandard facilities which the government's own expert, Muir, warned posed a risk to staff and prisoner safety.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER RIOT On Wednesday evening, as television news bulletins led with vision of the latest riot at Malmsbury and an escape by a group of young inmates, it added to an unenviable showreel. From the Moomba riots of last year, to the armed teens captured on CCTV robbing jewellery stores, to the repeated pictures of pole-wielding inmates on prison roofs, these jarring pictures suggest youth crime has exploded. But Victoria's headline youth crime figures actually tell a good story. Official data from the Crime Statistics Agency shows a significant drop over the past five years in the number of crimes committed by 10 to 17 year olds and the number of offenders in that same age bracket. What has shot up is the number of often violent crimes being committed by a small number of repeat offenders – a hardcore group of a few hundred, including some members of loosely structured gangs, such as Apex. The most recent annual report of Victoria's Youth Parole Board also gives some clues about what has been going on and who is responsible.

Tabled in parliament three months ago, the report included a snapshot survey of 176 youth either serving sentences or on remand. Almost 40 per cent of those surveyed had a parent or sibling in jail. The majority had problems with drink and drugs. Nearly half had been in child protection at some point. Indigenous kids made up 16 per cent of all children in custody, followed by Maori and Pacific islanders accounting for 11 per cent. In the confidential findings he sent the Victorian government in May 2016, Muir declared that youth justice staff "cannot be expected to house the mix [remand/sentenced], complexity and severity of offenders in the current set of facilities". He also warned that "the sad reality of clients in detention are that they are BOTH victims and perpetrators."

It's a sentiment repeatedly espoused by silver-haired human rights advocate Hugh de Kretser. LEGAL CHALLENGE In December, de Kretser's Human Rights Law Centre went to the Supreme Court and successfully challenged the Victorian government over its decision to temporarily send several young prisoners to Barwon prison after the November riots. Mikakos has savaged the legal challenge, tweeting that leaving young inmates at the damaged Parkville facility would expose them to unsafe conditions. "When they assaulted and raped each other, what then? … ," Mikakos tweeted.

But the problem with Barwon was that its Grevillea wing – initially at least – was not capable of holding prisoners safely, leading to the extensive use of isolation and lock-downs and only ad hoc access to education. Supreme Court Justice Gregory Garde declared Mikakos and her department "were flying blind as to the real situation and suitability of the Grevillea unit", forcing the government to refit and regazette it as a youth jail in order to keep using it. "Mistreating children in an adult prison will only make things worse," says de Kretser, who also points to Muir's findings that better fortified jails don't alone provide a long-term solution to the youth justice crisis. On Thursday, as police raced to arrest the Malmsbury escapees and the opposition again called for Mikakos' head, the minister announced major reforms. In the meantime, though, the youth justice system continues to plunge from crisis to crisis.

This week, Fairfax Media revealed Lanyon had been moved aside from his role running the jails. On Saturday, it emerged that the youth jails' chief educator, Murray, has separately been forced to step aside. DHHS sources say he's being investigated for giving information to de Kretser's legal team. As youth justice experts such as Professor Mark Halsey urge Victoria to commit to education and rehabilitation as a long-term solution to the crisis, the man once lauded for introducing schools into jails has been sidelined. Along with many Victorians, Niddrie man Phillip is concerned only with restoring his sense of security that was shattered after his home was invaded. He's not interested in calls for education and rehabilitation. But he also acknowledges that, somehow, Victoria's youth justice system must change. "Anyone can see it isn't working." TIMELINE OF A SYSTEM IN CRISIS

October 2010 Ombudsman George Brouwer and deputy Ombudsman John Taylor warn that the Parkville Youth Justice Centre is so unsuitable "that the only practical way to address the conditions at the precinct in the long-term is to develop a new facility at another site". Concerns included "hanging points" across the precinct, ill-placed staircases creating dangerous blind spots for staff, and a low roof that made it easy for detainees to climb onto it – a repeated problem in subsequent riots. The damning report is tabled one month before the Brumby government loses office to Ted Baillieu's Coalition. October 2015 A riot at Parkville where detainees wield iron bars and cricket bats and scale the roof leaves a $141,000 damage bill; NSW justice expert Peter Muir is called in to investigate. March 2016

Six detainees armed with metal bars climb onto the roof of the Parkville centre where they are seen smashing windows and skylights and tearing apart air-conditioning units. The trouble begins on Sunday, March 6, when the centre was locked down after hammers, pitchforks and metal bars were stolen from a gardening shed. Police are called in. The State Government again calls in Muir, a former NSW Juvenile Justice director, to review the riot. May 2016 Muir delivers his report to the Andrews government but it is kept secret until Fairfax Media gets a leaked copy of it eight months later. September 2016

Teenage inmates climb onto the roof of the Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre on September 17 during a 2½-hour siege. Inmates and guards also clash for three days at Parkville. The next month, former Victoria Police chief commissioner Neil Comrie is appointed to investigate. November 2016 Over the weekend of Saturday, November 12, through to the early hours of Monday, November 14, Parkville detainees rip ceilings and walls apart, throw computers through the windows, and arm themselves before climbing onto the roof. They destroy about one-third of the centre. – The alleged instigators of the riots are sent to the adult Barwon prison on November 21. Premier Daniel Andrews declares the next day that he makes "no apology" for doing so. "The behaviour that we have seen at Parkville is completely unacceptable. I am sick ... and the Victorian community is sick of it. Those inmates will be going to adult prison and I make absolutely no apology," he says. December 2016

The Victorian Supreme Court rules on December 21 that sending the youths to an adult prison is illegal. On December 28, the Court of Appeal upholds that ruling. – The next day, the State government circumvents the orders of the Supreme Court to remove about a dozen youths from Barwon Prison by officially reclassifying Barwon's Grevillea Unit as a youth justice facility and remand centre. January 2017 Six detainees at Parkville break pool fencing apart on January 7 to use as makeshift weapons. Police are called to the facility amid another night of rioting. – On January 12, there is another riot at Malmsbury. It ends when heavily armed police stormed the facility and arrest six inmates.

– On January 25, another riot breaks out at Malmsbury and about 15 detainees escape, stealing cars, ramming other vehicles and sparking police pursuits. – Earlier that day Fairfax Media exclusively reveals that the State Government was warned in May 2016 that the system was spiralling out of control risking the safety of staff and clients after getting a copy of Muir's secret 61-page report that was ordered after the March 2016 riots at Parkville. – Fairfax Media also reveal that the man who ran the Parkville and Malmsbury youth justice facilities, Ian Lanyon, has recently been moved from his post.