Poor education is largely at the root of juvenile crime, according to an Ulladulla social worker.
Andrew Humphreys, who is also a former high school teacher, blamed the "whole-language" approach to teaching literacy for leaving many disadvantaged children unable to read.
This led to illiterate children misbehaving in school, skipping school and becoming involved in antisocial behaviour such as graffiti and shoplifting, he said.
Mr Humphreys called for more remedial education in the juvenile justice system as well as sentences that held young offenders accountable, rather than cautions.
"(Juvenile offenders) typically come from a background where there's very little education at home.
"They're completely illiterate when they get to school, where middle-class kids are partially literate," he said.
Once they reached school, children are taught to read and write by the whole-language approach, which Mr Humphreys said failed children with no literacy skills when they started school.
"They fail to learn to read," Mr Humphreys said.
"They then act up and get angry because they get punished."
By about Year 8, these children were regularly skipping school.
"When they're truanting, very often they start committing crime. They shoplift, they vandalise.
"They defy their teachers at school then they're almost shut out of education."
Mr Humphreys agreed with comments by Wollongong District Court Judge Paul Conlon last week when he called on Children's Court magistrates to get tougher on young offenders.
Judge Conlon had said he was frustrated by the number of juveniles coming through courts.
"(Magistrates) keep hitting them over the wrist and letting them walk out of the door," he said.
"What that builds up in the young offender's (mind) is they believe there is no real price to pay for bad behaviour."
He noted that a juvenile offender might have had reasonable prospects of rehabilitation.
"(But) no-one's ever grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and said, 'You're going to this institution, you're going to attend your courses so by hook or by crook you're going to get an education'."
Mr Humphreys said issuing multiple cautions or putting offenders on probation did not work.
"They think, 'If I do this I will just get a caution'," he said.
"Then: 'If I do this again I will get another caution. If I do it again I might get a probation'."
Instead, Mr Humphreys called for an assessment of juvenile offenders at the caution stage to find out why they were committing crimes in the first place so those issues could be addressed.
"A lot of offenders are learning to read and write in adult prison," Mr Humphreys said.
"If we're going to get them out of the prison system, we've got to have them numerate and literate."
Mr Humphreys said work skills programs operating in adult prisons could be implemented in juvenile detention.
"The problem with warnings and cautions is they don't have a sentence imposed," he said.
"A criminal act occurred - a sentence needs to be imposed.
"Prior to that sentence there needs to be an assessment of why the kid's offending and what their needs are. Then there can be intervention."
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