Almost three-quarters of young people released from custody in Northern Ireland re-offended within a year, statistics revealed today.
Thieves were most likely to repeat their crimes, with some violent children also relapsing.
Some had over nine previous convictions despite being aged 17 or younger.
According to the Northern Ireland Office's report,
Northern Ireland Youth Re-offending, there were 43 former detainees aged between 10 and 17 who re-offended inside a year, which equates to 73 per cent.
The rate of recidivism amongst those sentenced to non-custodial punishments was 37 per cent, according to records of those discharged in 2005.
Youth justice centres hold the most serious and difficult to handle offenders, often for relatively short periods of time.
Some young people have also been placed in detention as a substitute for proper social care, a watchdog has warned.
Howard League for Penal Reform director Frances Crook said custody exacerbates the problem of youth criminality. She said inmates were exposed to violence and drug-taking while inside. "Institutions are quite toxic and young offenders’ centres are the most toxic of all,” she said.
"When they come out of custody, not only do they go on to commit more crimes but there are more serious and more sexual offences," she added, suggesting restorative justice should be used instead in some cases.
DUP Assembly member Jeffrey Donaldson said the findings exposed inadequacies in the system.
"We have been pressing the government to increase the tariffs on sentences for serious crimes because we believe that the deterrent value of imprisonment isn't sufficiently strong that it prevents people from reoffending," he said.
"Imprisonment should mean for those serious offences a much longer term so that it deters people from reoffending in the future."
This week the Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland (CJINI) organisation found custody has been used for trivial offences in breach of international safeguards. Inappropriate incarceration is more evident in the North than in other parts of the UK, the authority said.