Instead of calling the cops, a business owner offered a job to the teenager who tried to break into his store

• A business owner said on social media that someone tried to break into his premises.
• Instead of calling the police, Jeff Usher said he wanted to offer "a better way" to the culprit.

An Australian business owner has surprised his local community with a kind-hearted response to a burglary at his store.

Jeff Usher posted on Facebook that Custom Cabinets Katherine, in Australia's Northern Territory, had been broken into by at least one young person.

"Only issue I have is we weren't open at that time of night and it's not that cool to use a jimmy bar on our doors," he wrote on Facebook.

Rather than using the social media platform to seek justice, he decided to offer a helping hand instead: "We would love to get in contact with this young fella and offer him a better way of getting by."

Usher added that he hoped to speak to the youth's school about working out a training schedule that would lead to long-term employment to help avoid "possible future incarceration".

"Feel free to share this as this is a genuine offer, we haven't gone to the police as they are busy enough and so are we," he added.

Break-ins of commercial premises in Katherine had risen by 134%, per the most recent police figures, ABC News Australia reported earlier this year.

Other types of crime have also jumped and in March the Northern Territory government announced measures such as new powers for police following the killing of a young liquor store worker in the capital city, Darwin.

Usher told the NT News his business employs two apprentices, four tradespeople and an office manager.

He believed that existing approaches to youth crime were not working.

"I'm not trying to save the world – I just reckon some of these kids need to be built up, not a kicking," Usher told the newspaper.

"He'll end up in jail, crime's a slippery slope and a hard habit to break I think. The community here is amazing – a lot of people like myself want to help because being angry and upset is a wasted emotion."