It is every parents' wish that their children grow up very disciplined with behaviour that epitomize acceptable norms of values in any society, most of which centre around good behaviour, model child in society, well rounded and ethical child and exhibit features that society recognise is 'good behaviour'.
As most parents would know, not all will go according to what parents would have hoped for. In some cases, parents don't even have parenting plans for their children. When the unplanned happens, and when children become 'troublesome' members of our society and participate in criminal actives, parents get the shock of their lives. However, parents should not dismay and loose hope, this is not the end of life for their children.
As far as 1994 government started efforts to strengthen youth diversion programmes for children at conflict with the law. Current diversion was developed by Inter-Ministerial Committee on Young People at Risk. The aim of diversion programmes is to provide an alternative to the normal criminal justice approach where restorative justice principles are used to correct the behaviour of young offenders so to protect them from effects prison life experienced in their youth years.
Addressing the National Conference on Substance Abuse and Family Related Interventions in Birchwood last week Friday, Nanette Minaar, Programme Developer and Trainer at KHULISA, said there are various factors, beyond the control of the child offenders, that are causes for their criminal behaviour. "These include inter-generational poverty, unemployment, lack of social attachment, growing up in violent and crime-prone communities and lack of social cohesion, amongst others. The Child Justice Act 75 of 2008 makes provision to responding to justice issues facing such children", Minaar said.
The objectives of the Act are to; encourage the child to take responsibility of their crimes, to promote re-integration, to prevent stigmatisation of child offenders and to reduce chances of recidivism (re-offending). These objectives of diversion programmes can be realised through four levels – prosecutorial diversion, after the pre-trial assessment is conducted, at preliminary inquiry and during trial in the child justice court.
The conference heard that whilst the diversion programme is a tool to assist young offenders and help with rehabilitation, it still remains the prime responsibility of families and parents to raise their children properly, which amongst others, include spending a lot of time with their children so that they can observe how they grow and be able to detect wrong behaviour much early and correcting it.