time.

One might think the spectre of court, the blue-uniformed court constables, the robed judges and JPs, and the formal, cold legal language would send these kids, castigated, back into the city as law-abiders.

Provincial data shows more than half of kids who commit serious crimes reoffend within two years. The percentage is slightly decreasing but in 2010-11 was still almost 60 per cent.

The Star saw many of these cases.

It is the afternoon of July 7 in Courtroom 6, and Kevin Robinson is back again. He has spent most of his teenage years in and out of 311 Jarvis, has had a probation officer since he was 14.

He wears a long sleeve grey T-shirt, baggy jeans, hair in corn rows, his cellphone in a hip holster. He looks relaxed. (Apistol was tucked in the waistband of a youth arrested in a public school. He was found guilty of gun possession and possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.

Bullets from clip in 9 mm pistol.

As he drove his father's pickup truck around the city, a youth fired this assault weapon-style paintball gun at homeless people.

A Toronto youth used this knife to rob convenience store owners of cash and cigarettes.