Two riots in two weeks, and a third incident on Sunday that had state police swarming the Western PA Child Care (WPCC) facility in northern Butler County. It’s the story that has people wondering: why is this happening? How can we ensure it stops? Are the staff members — more than a dozen — injured in the melees OK? Physically? Mentally?

Those are some big questions. We have another: Why is a juvenile detention facility that is apparently incapable of providing the most basic level of security still in operation?

Two melees — one last month and another on Saturday — in the facility’s cafeteria were bad enough. The juvenile offenders at WPCC have obviously conspired to carry out attacks targeting staff members at the facility.

On Sunday, when 10 juveniles broke out of their “secure” rooms and had to be subdued by state police, the student-inmates graduated to a whole other level of planning and aggression. One juvenile was found with a metal shank — a crudely homemade knife — in his possession.

If a detention center cannot guarantee the security of the rooms it uses to house juvenile offenders, then nothing else matters. And there is a big difference between youthful stupidity that runs a young person afoul of law enforcement and the thoughtful and escalating pattern of violent and destructive behavior on display at WPCC.

If there is no way to ensure the safety and authority of staff members when they are supervising large groups of juveniles, and no way to ensure the security of juveniles when they are not under direct supervision, then what is the point of operating the facility at all?

Officials in Harrisburg, exercising their oversight role, should be expected to press for changes and accountability in how the facility is operated.

The recent attacks or melees suggest the primary purpose WPCC’s Butler County facility currently serves is creating an unstable environment that empowers the most violent and unpredictable juveniles.

That environment not only endangers staff members, it endangers other inmates and makes it far more difficult — perhaps impossible — for them to buy into the rehabilitation that is supposed to presage their release as productive members of society.

None of those outcomes is acceptable. The facility should be shut down until it is safe, secure and capable of doing the job for which it was intended.