Juvenile offenders’ rehabilitation programmes in the Department of Correctional Services in Durban management area

Abstract

The White Paper on Corrections in South Africa, 2004 makes provision for the rehabilitation of offenders who are sentenced by the South African courts to between two years and life imprisonment. The study was aimed at ascertaining if the juvenile offenders who were serving their respective sentences in the Durban Management Area participated in rehabilitation programmes because they saw the value, need and importance in the role that these programmes could play in assisting them to change their criminal mindsets. The study used the mixed methods approach, where a total of 150 juvenile offenders who were serving their prison terms were sampled. Qualitative in-depth interviews were targeted whereby the spiritual care worker, three social workers and ten educators were interviewed. The study was also extended to the ten ex-juvenile offenders who once participated in the rehabilitation programmes to establish how participating in rehabilitation programmes benefitted them and whether the acquired skills assisted them with reintegration into their respective societies and in leading a crime-free life. The significance of this study emanated from the literature, which points out that the juvenile offenders and other categories of offenders repeat their crimes after their release. This, therefore, begs the question: ‘Why is this happening?’ despite the fact Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has rehabilitation programmes which are aimed at changing the criminal mindsets of all offenders to desist from committing crime again. This study was, therefore, expected to find the answer to this question and to assist the Department of Correctional Services to tailor its rehabilitation programmes in a manner that will maximally impact the juvenile offenders. The study was also intended to contribute towards the body of knowledge in the field of behavioural sciences. The managerial implication of the study was that it might inform the new policy direction that the Department of Correctional Services might take based on the findings. The study found that most of the juvenile offenders agreed that they participated in rehabilitation programmes because they wanted to change their criminal mindsets. 95% of the juvenile offenders stated that they were positively impacted by the rehabilitation programmes and therefore, their attitude towards crime and criminality had changed. The study also found that 91% of the juvenile offenders participated in rehabilitation because they saw the need, value and importance of rehabilitation programmes. Interestingly 93% of the juvenile offenders mentioned that they would never commit a crime again. It emerged in the study that juvenile offenders were mostly impacted by the education and training programmes. It transpired that of the ten ex-juvenile offenders who were interviewed, five were now university graduates and were employed. Two of the exjuvenile offenders were qualified Chartered Accountants and had had their criminal records expunged. The other two were lecturers at two institutions of higher learning in KwaZulu-Natal. One ex-juvenile offender who had B. Comm Accounting degree owned a property business and employed four graduates who had never been to prison. It emerged in the study that amongst the challenges faced by ex-juvenile offenders was the fact that they were unemployable because of their criminal records. In this study, the author argued that there was tangible evidence that the juvenile offenders in the Durban Management Area were positively impacted by the rehabilitation programmes delivered to them. This was evident in education and training programmes. It was also the argument of this study that criminal records negate all the efforts of ex-juvenile offenders to lead a crime-free life. This, therefore, meant that there should be a policy shift which would address this challenge. The study, therefore, recommended that the current and ex-juvenile offenders should be provided with entrepreneurial skills so that they could open and manage their businesses on their release from the prison. This could be an opportunity for institutions like the Durban University of Technology Entrepreneurial Department to partner with the Department of Correctional Services as a community outreach programme and roll out these much-needed entrepreneurial skills to juvenile offenders. This could also be the Durban University of Technology’s contribution to crime prevention, poverty alleviation and employment creation.