And with many on school holidays experts are warning we need to brace ourselves for the young and the restless.
Out of control young offenders are responsible for bashings, stabbings and arson attacks - including an arson attack at a Queensland shopping centre which led to charges being laid against two boys aged just eleven and twelve.
Another twelve-year-old boy carried out a vicious attack on a defenceless seventeen-year-old in broad daylight on a suburban street.
More stories from Today TonightThe twelve-year-old held the older boy in a head lock and literally choked him until he lost consciousness.
He then let him go and threw him onto the road like a rag doll.
Megan Youngberry's fifteen-year-old son filmed the sickening attack on his mobile phone.
"What twelve-year-old goes around literally choking a seventeen-year-old? He's twelve but he doesn't look twelve. He looks like an adult," Youngberry said.
The victim required extensive dental work to fix his smashed teeth.
"I'm disgusted because I do worry for my kids' safety," Youngberry said.
More stories from reporter Neil Doorley
Another victim was Gold Coast bus driver and former soldier Paul Crick-Lyons, who was left badly shake by a brawl involving young boys and girls.
In footage of the incident he's heard saying "I've just had to throw a kid physically off the bus because he was beating up girls ... I don't think I can move."
It was a terrifying experience for a man who knows all about fear, having fought in Borneo.
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Forensic psychologist Dr Bob Montgomery says Severe Conduct Disorder can start in toddlers.
"Severe Conduct Disorder is major disregard for the rights of other people, for their safety, for their property, and it's the precursor of a serious pattern of offending, which often leads in adults to antisocial personality disorder," Dr Montgomery said.
"You pick up conduct disorder in preschoolers, and if you talk to staff in local childcare centres they will tell you about little Freddie or little Edwina, who are really nasty to animals, to other kids, to other kids' property, and that's a real warning sign."
Should the politicians make tougher punishments for juvenile offenders?
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