Research on Youth resilience to crime and violence
Young people constitute the majority of both victims and perpetrators of crime in South Africa. Strategies and interventions aimed at reducing the levels of crime often aim to reduce the levels of risk – that is, the factors that increase the likelihood of pushing or pulling young people into a life of crime - that exist within the country, rather than building the resilience of young people in adverse circumstances to crime and violence. The concept of resilience or protective factors within criminology is itself fraught with debate, specifically regarding the degree to which resilience factors exist as merely the converse or the absence of risk factors.

There has been little work done on resilience factors within the South African environment. With this in mind, and given the project work undertaken by the CJCP with young people, the CJCP research programme undertook an innovative study to identify and prioritise resilience factors that exist in South Africa. The objectives of the study were twofold – to inform the emerging local discourse on social crime prevention with a slant on building youth resilience to crime; and to inform the design and implementation of youth resilience implementation projects working with youth and children within a range of South African environments.

The study methodology included both quantitative and qualitative components. The quantitative research adopted a double-triangulation approach. Samples of incarcerated youth offenders, between the ages of 14 and 25, in eight correctional facilities in four provinces, were interviewed. Participants were screened to ensure that they had caregivers and siblings in their families. These were traced back to their home communities, and both siblings and caregivers were interviewed. A sample of non-offending youth of the same age, their caregivers and their siblings, all residing in the same communities as the offender's families, were then interviewed.

This quantitative component was complemented with a series of focus groups and in-depth discussions with offenders in each of the correctional facilities.
More detail on the study is presented in CJCP Monograph No 5: Walking the Tightrope: Youth Resilience to Crime and Violence in South Africa,
and CJCP Research Bulletin No 4: Building Youth Resiliency to Crime and Violence.
Further analysis on the data is ongoing.