CCTV footage shows children being hit, stripped naked, tear gassed, and restrained with their arms behind their backs while sprayed with a waterhose. 

Perhaps most disturbing is the image of teenager Daniel Voller strapped to a “restraint chair” with a hood over his head.

It is like something out of Abu Ghraib – the notorious Iraqi prison – not something we should accept as part of Australia’s youth justice system.

How this type of punishment was deemed appropriate in any custodial facility, let alone one dealing with children, is truly unfathomable.

More disturbing than the images is the attitudes of people in power who claimed to know nothing about the problems in the centre despite previous inquiries raising concerns.

Many professed to be “shocked” by the images, despite previous reports detailing the terrible culture and the footage shown on Four Corners being available to them.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion said he believed the culture of brutality had been fixed so he never bothered to follow it up. It had not "piqued" his interest.

His office was given an advanced copy of the ABC’s story, which he did not watch, going out to dinner instead until Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called him to say go home and view it.

Mr Turnbull quite rightly acted quickly to call a royal commission into the revelations at the centre in question.

It should examine child detention across the jurisdiction as it is hard to believe such a shocking culture was confined to one area.

The issue of children in detention is undoubtedly a challenge – philosophically and practically.

With the exception of the most serious of one-off incidents, kids don’t end up in detention easily: they have often committed multiple crimes that deserve punishment by detention.

But it comes back to the point that the restriction of liberty should be the punishment, not the treatment received when liberty is curtailed.

If the goal of punishment and detention is to rehabilitate, then this type of treatment is as counterproductive as could be imagined.

It is time the treatment of children in detention piqued everyone’s interest.