This detention centre shows how one state is planning to tackle youth crime

How to reduce youth crime is a question that governments across Australia are grappling with, and many are turning to longer jail sentences as the solution.

But the cost of that is extraordinary, with $1.1 billion now spent each year by states and territories across Australia on youth incarceration.

The Queensland government pioneered the "adult crime adult time" crackdown on youth offenders last year. Victoria has now implemented similar laws.

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But Queensland is also spending record amounts on the rehabilitation of youth criminals with the aim to make their first visit inside detention their last.

"I think investing in rehabilitation is far, far better than the cost of crime to communities," Youth Justice Minister Laura Gerber said.

The new program called Staying on Track is already seeing promising results with one offender who was locked up for stealing cars now washing them instead.

"We are committed to this over many, many years to ensure that youth get the rehabilitation they need because we know it is going to take time," Gerber said.

A Current Affair was given rare access inside a youth detention centre on a guided tour with the minister and Department of Youth Justice acting director-general Michael Drane.

"This is the end of the road for a number of these young people," Drane said.

"The real work lies in shifting behaviour and shifting attitudes."

The West Moreton Youth Detention Centre in the Brisbane suburb of Wacol is a 32-bed facility operating at full capacity.

Offenders are split up into accommodation pods housing no more than eight individuals, each grouping arranged by gender and age bracket.

In Queensland, children as young as 10 can be jailed, though that is unusual. The average age is 16.

The facility is surrounded by five-metre-high walls and security cameras, while the pods themselves have two additional layers of security just to get inside.

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Everything inside is bolted down, including a ping pong table used for entertainment.

A large television is attached to the wall, contained inside reinforced glass and metal casing.

Detainees are locked into a small cell on their own each night at 7.30pm and released at 7am the next day.

"Some people might look at this and think this is super harsh, but ultimately this young person has caused extreme harm to a community and is in here for a reason," Gerber said.

Life in lockup is all about order and structure to maintain control.

The offenders are required to clean their cells daily and also assist with meal preparation.

"There are chores that they have to do in the morning, like mopping, cleaning up after themselves, making sure their unit is clean, then they go off to school," Gerber said.

When inmates are moved from their accommodation pod to the education centre, they walk in an orderly single file.

The classrooms look similar to a regular school, the walls filled with motivational messages about learning respect.

One mural reads, "Dear Past, thank you for the lesson. Dear Future, I'm ready".

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"Our staff front up to work every day with that in mind, trying to turn broken lives around effectively," Drane said.

When you walk around inside the cells it doesn't feel anything like home.

Most kids would be terrified to spend even a night locked up there but for some offenders, it ends up feeling like the only home they have.

Selena Walters used to work inside detention until a conversation with a repeat offender changed her path.

"He'd only been out for two weeks and straight back into detention, and I said, 'what are you doing back here?' and he said, 'this is home miss'," Walters said.

"I know kids who have actively offended to get back in detention and to have a roof over their heads and three meals a day."

Walters runs a youth rehabilitation program called Fearless Towards Success, aiming to stop the revolving door of youth detention.

"I think if you're going to punish these kids, you also need to look at the other side and think, 'okay, what do we need to do to not see them back in there' and protect the community ongoing," she said.

Her youth workers act as mentors with offenders, providing 12 months of support including after they are released back into the community.

Under the previous government, more than 90 per cent of youth criminals were returning to detention in under a year.

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Those kids were only getting three days of rehabilitation upon release and only if they were deemed a "serious repeat offender".

"Three days. I don't think you can call that rehabilitation," Gerber said.

"Youth were released from detention centres with zero support, dumped straight back into communities and expected to just turn their lives around on their own."

Queensland's Staying On Track initiative provides 23 programs across the state at a cost of $45 million per year.

A drop in the ocean compared to the $1.1 billion spent nationally on locking up youth offenders.

"We haven't had anything like this before," Walters said.

"Previously, kids were on a 72-hour program when they left detention, and it takes a long time to unravel the behaviours and everything they've been involved with in their lives."

Success stories are already emerging, with one 16-year-old who was locked up for stealing cars now earning money from washing them instead.

"It gives us hope that we can make a difference in these kids' lives," Walters said.

"But most importantly, it makes us happy that they're actually seeing something in themselves, that they actually have a future and that they're giving it a go and that they're wanting to move out of this period in their life."