Abstract
M.A.
The research focussed on the reasons of re-offending amongst youth that have been exposed to a diversion programme. Diversion programmes, which are run by different organisations, were developed as a means of assisting youth in conflict with the law to understand the effects of their committing a particular crime, and empower them to avoid engaging in criminal behaviour in future.
A qualitative study was conducted since it focused on exploring the reasons for re-offending of youth in conflict with the law. The researcher attempted to answer the following questions:
What are the reasons youth offenders continue to commit crime?
What was the impact of the diversion programme on the youth offender?
How can the existing intervention programmes be improved to preventing this target group from engaging in criminal activities for a second time?
Exploratory research has been chosen for this study as it attempts to answer the “why” and “what” questions as they pertain to the study.
The researcher’s population was all the youth re-offenders assessed at the Protea Magistrate court in Soweto between February and December 2007
Fifteen youth who have re-offended and attended their hearings at the Protea Magistrate Court were selected to participate in this exploratory study which was conducted to gain more insight on youth re-offending. Purposive sampling was used to select youth who have re-offended. For a detailed picture of the respondents’ experiences on offending and re-offending, information was collected through a semi-structured interview. The
interviewees responded in their home language and data was translated to English
Youth involvement in crime is one of the main concerns of this country. In an attempt to reduce the involvement of youth in criminal activities, it is also very
important to address re-offending. Therefore, the focus on the reasons for youth to continuously commit crimes cannot be overemphasised.
The findings of this study also revealed that the diversion programmes were
effective in the respondents’ lives, even though they got re-arrested. Respondents had a clear understanding of crime as a problem, and are
aware about its consequences.
Most respondents perceived labelling by their community members as a major role player in youth re-offending. One of the recommendations is to educate community members more about the Juvenile Justice System. Youth committed crime at any age within the teen years. It is recommended that crime awareness campaigns and crime prevention programmes should focus more on younger children at primary schools, to help preventing them to get involved in criminal activities when they enter adolescence.