Many years ago in Dublin, where I was living on a working holiday, my friend and housemate's younger brother got into the worst kind of trouble.

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Late one night in a park near his home, he got into a scrap with a group in their late teens and early 20s who had been his friends. There'd been a blow-up over a damaged bike or something trivial like that. Violence was brewing the next time they met, and so he slipped a knife into his pocket for protection.

In the confrontation that came, he killed his one-time best friend with a single stab wound to the heart. I still remember the police coming to our house in the early hours to tell my friend the news and the awful cries of disbelief.

Her brother spent most of his 20s in prison. One life was ended and many more were wrecked by stupid bravado and undeveloped frontal lobes.

That tragic event has been on my mind all week as we've asked aloud what is going on with Canberra's teenagers?

A brawl at a sports field where parents stepping in to protect their kids were pummelled from all sides by kids with no respect or restraint. Nights out in Civic fuelled by ketamine and "nangs". Stabbings on school grounds.

Our reporting has focused heavily on these issues over the past few weeks. On Tuesday, the day we published footage of the brawl at the........

© Canberra Times