In many ways it is a perfectly natural response to want more police and tougher jail terms to deter crooks from robbing and terrorising the public. Crims are mean, nasty and dangerous, so why not give them a taste of their own medicine?

Just think of the events in Melbourne in recent days that show our spiralling problem of young offenders. On the outside they commit violent home invasions, with children as young as 10 causing road deaths in stolen cars. Police vehicles are rammed regularly by kid drivers who couldn't steer a dodgem car at Luna Park and shouldn't be taking anything that makes them excitable apart from red lemonade.

On the inside things aren't much better. Inmates at Parkville Juvenile Justice Centre regularly riot, demand junk food and have caused more than $1 million in damages.

So when Freiberg pops his head up to suggest the hardline approach can be counter-productive – resulting in more crime not less – there is a queue of people who want to kick it off.

The traditional model of crime deterrence is based on the likelihood of apprehension combined with the severity of punishment. Which means more police and tougher jail terms should do the trick, right?

This might have worked once. But there has been a change in the past few years, particularly with young offenders. Numbers in the Children's Court have dropped, but there is a growing core of juveniles identified as repeat violent offenders who simply don't give a stuff about being locked up.

Smash up the Justice Centre or a police car or rob an Officeworks filled with security cameras and you will be caught. But that is part of the plan, as getting arrested increases Facebook cred and is an added buzz. Every news report, every horror story and every social media post feeds a sense of power.

According to the latest Sentencing Advisory Council figures, prison numbers have jumped 67 per cent in 10 years while the crime rate continues to climb. "Prison has not proven to be particularly effective in reducing crime," says Freiberg.

He says jail time needs to be seen as just one response and can't be seen as the answer to every crime. The trouble with those who question hardline attitudes is their alternatives tend to read a little like hippie lyrics from The Mamas and the Papas. They talk of respect, culture, role models, young offender pathways, vegie burgers for vandals and assorted "Save the Whale" bumper-sticker solutions.

Try and sell that to a terrified family who have has suffered a home invasion from vicious, violent and vindictive Apex gang thugs. They want protection, justice and real solutions that make sense.

In the US, the home of lock-'em-up laws, there is a strong push to move away from jail as the solution to crime. And little wonder, with more than 2 million Americans behind bars – the world's second-highest incarceration rate – and murder statistics that would shame a Third World country.

Which is why places like Texas are investing in reform, supervision and rehabilitation rather than just jail cells – a program that is finally reducing both crime and prison numbers.

But should we be looking to the US for answers? Probably not, as we don't have the same ghetto mentality, mass shooting culture and crazy gun mindset. Nor do we pour melted cheese on anything that moves.

Then perhaps the answer (or at least part of it) lies not with the US but on the other side of the Atlantic in Scotland – Glasgow, to be more precise.

There, they have gangs that make Apex look like the Salvation Army minus the tambourines. This is a place where joining a gang was a rite of passage for working class juveniles and kids as young as 12 were scarred for life from knife fights. They called it the booze-and-blade culture, under which the Glasgow Southern General Hospital treated a knife victim every six hours. (Scotland was clocking about 1400 knife wound victims a year, with most victims males aged 12 to 19.)

They even had an expression for it – the "Glasgow Smile" where the victim is slit from mouth to ear, forever marked as a gang victim. The city  of just over 1 million citizens was dubbed the murder capital of Europe.

About 10 years ago, authorities accepted that traditional methods of crime fighting had failed. This was not unreasonable, considering the Glasgow gang culture had bubbled along for at least 90 years.

In 2005, Strathclyde Police set up the Violence Reduction Unit to try and deal with problems that underpinned the national sport of drunken stabbings. At the time you would be forgiven for thinking a good night out in Glasgow consisted of 10 pints, a curry and a knife fight.

In 2005-06, of the 185 people charged with homicide in Scotland, 25 per cent were aged 20 or younger, 60 per cent 30 or younger, 60 per cent were drunk at the time of the crime and knives were used in more than half the killings.

The VRU quickly confirmed that most victims and offenders grew up in violent homes with dysfunctional parents, where drug and alcohol abuse were the norm. Joining a gang was just part of life, with a knife a street fashion accessory. The police didn't become quasi social workers, but rather were given tougher knife laws to jail those carrying bladed weapons.

But there had to be more than enforcement. One of the founding members of the VRU was forensic psychologist Karyn McCluskey, who had been Strathclyde Police head of intelligence analysis for six years.

The unit identified more than 150 gangs with at least 3500 members and formed a plan that was in no way a firm blueprint. It also faced official apathy, with many thinking the problems too big and too entrenched to tackle. "Sometimes you just need to go forward relentlessly. Sometimes you don't even know the direction you are going in … Where do you start? Who cares, start some place … you can lead, you can follow or you can get out of the way," McCluskey told a Scottish conference last year.

First she and her boss, former homicide detective John Carnochan, accepted that you cannot force gang members to reform. They started to think of violence as a disease – one you catch from exposure at an early age. There were common denominators – geographic hot-spots, domestic violence, few job opportunities and a lack of positive male role models.

She says there is "a whole group of young men who have grown up in 21st-century Scotland without any idea what it is to be a man".

Yes, they reasoned, traditional punishment including jail was a component, but they needed to add a positive element to kids beaten down for so long they no longer valued life – even their own. Seeing brutality at home in those early years crushed their sense of empathy. They felt nothing for their victims and cared little for their futures.

The gangs gave them a sense of power and a feeling of purpose, no matter how self-destructive. When McCluskey asked why they joined, the typical response was, "Because without a gang I'm nothing".

This is exactly what is happening in Victoria, although we are talking of fewer than 200 hardline young offenders rather than the thousands Glasgow faced.

The VRU started with community courthouse meetings to which gang members were invited. Their photos were flashed on the walls as a senior policeman identified them by name, adding he knew where they lived and would arrest them if they continued to offend.

Then a doctor showed graphic shots of the injured, illustrating the consequences of drunken knife fights. At this point, according to McCluskey, little changed and if anything the recognition fed their egos.

But then a mother who had lost her son would tell her story, because the police reasoned that even the most callous gang leaders still loved their mum (usually the only person who visited them in jail). Slowly, the hard facades would drop and there would be tears.

Then came the sell. They were told they had choices and didn't have to accept their miserable lives. A 24-hour hotline was set up to offer advice on health, education and employment.

Commit to us and we will commit to you, was the message. As McCluskey says, "The best way to stop a gun or a gang is a job".

The result? The Glasgow murder rate has halved, other violent crime has dropped, and police are finding fewer young men carrying knives. The VRU system was introduced throughout Scotland and homicides dropped by 50 per cent, with recorded crimes now at a 40-year low.

So the question is, "Will we continue to be weak by pretending to be tough, or will we look to Scotland the Brave?"