Khulisa Crime Prevention Initiative offers a holistic approach towards dealing with youth involved in crime and violence. Early intervention, rehabilitation, reintegration, and prevention programmes are provided to youth in communities, youth in prisons, and youth who have been released from correctional facilities. The prison-based interventions focus on developing the skills and personal development of the young person in preparation for release and reintegration in the family and community.  Programmes do not, however, only focus on the offender, but also support and empower Department of Correctional Service officials to render rehabilitation services to offenders. 

Khulisa offers a rehabilitation programme (Discovery) while young offenders are incarcerated, a pre-release programme and a post-release reintegration programme (Destinations). The foundational rehabilitation programme is “My Path, which, based on the trans-theoretical model of change, provides a personal development and correctional process across the Discovery and Destinations programmes. The reintegration programme provides and establishes networks that offer social, emotional and practical support to recently released offenders. The methodology includes weekly individual counselling sessions, mentoring, facilitated group discussions and the streaming of participants into learnerships, further studies, informal employment or community work. 

According to the Khulisa programme facilitators, juvenile offenders with sentences longer than two years tend to participate in the programme as they want to occupy their time and be ready for parole. However, for some their involvement with the programme is limited due to early release. This is too late for Khulisa to have a sustainable positive influence on their behaviour. If juvenile offenders start participating earlier in their sentences, there is time for them to gain the skills necessary for their life plan after release. The Department of Correctional Services is also then able to support them further in career development. Unfortunately, Khulisa’s funding cycles are for one year only, and it is therefore difficult to plan juvenile rehabilitation and reintegration programmes which last the entire time that a young person is imprisoned. 

My Path aims to increase self-insight and insight into emotions and values.  The programme enhances self-esteem, fosters a sense of hope and the belief that change is possible.  The programme also facilitates taking personal accountability, increasing self-discipline and motivation to embrace a new way of being in the world, supports the development of integrity, and finally increases creativity and literacy.  The final phase of the programme helps to identify interests and talents and develops practical job finding skills. 

Community members who have participated in the Khulisa programmes over the past five years, indicated that communities are not empowered to deal with crime and the reintegration of offenders on their own, and that they are not aware of any successful initiatives. There was a call for communities to find ways to deal with such matters, and that community members need to be trained to implement programmes in partnership with DCS, business, faith based, non-government and community based organisations. 

Of interest was the view of some ex-offenders that their community is against anything that is positive and therefore one is looked down upon if one is involved in projects as a volunteer. However, other communities have been very supportive of ex-offender initiatives to support youth away from a life of crime. 

In conclusion, a fundamental shift in thinking towards offender rehabilitation and reintegration is required to stop the debilitating cycle of imprisonment in South Africa

It is the view of the researcher that the Khulisa My Path programmes in rehabilitation and reintegration are pioneering a new approach in South Africa towards breaking cycles of crime and violence, developing ex-offenders into social and economic assets for community level development, and strengthening interpersonal relationship between family, peers and communities. The findings from this research process provide valuable insights into the content of rehabilitation, pre-release and reintegration programmes, processes and structures for juvenile offenders in South Africa.