Saferspaces logo Saferspaces

Youth violence

Youth violence – Understand

In most countries, young people – particularly young men – constitute both the majority of perpetrators and victims of violence and crime. Violence prevention measures with a strong focus on youth therefore have great potential to reduce violence and crime rates across society.

Introduction

Youth violence is a growing challenge for the societies and governments of many countries, including South Africa. Internationally, the number of youth homicides has been increasing for years.

Around the globe, every year almost a quarter of a million people under the age of 30 are murdered. This accounts for half of all homicides globally per year.1 For every young person killed by violence, 20 to 40 more become victims of violence and require hospitalisation.2

Violence affects youth and adults differently. If children and youth are exposed to or become victims of violence, there is a high risk that they will show violent behaviour themselves at a later stage.

Defining youth violence

Violence is understood differently across countries and cultures and there is no universally accepted definition of violence. Based on the WHO's definition of violence, youth violence can be defined as:

"The physical or psychological harm done to people – either intentionally or as a result of neglect – that involves young people as perpetrators, victims or both; or that is a potential threat to the youth."

For more information: Systemic Prevention of Youth Violence: A handbook to design and plan comprehensive violence prevention measures

In South Africa, a study by the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention showed that young people who have been victims of violence were six times more likely to commit a crime than those who have not been victimised.3

In most countries, young people – particularly young men – constitute both the majority of perpetrators and victims of violence and crime.

Violence prevention measures with a strong focus on youth therefore have great potential to reduce violence and crime rates across society. By addressing the root causes of youth violence and strengthening young people's resilience to risk factors, prevention efforts can reduce youth's susceptibility to violence and crime, and thus increase safety for all of society.

 

Why we need to focus on youth violence

The prevalence of youth violence in South Africa require dedicated, targeted responses. A 2008 study found that young people were almost twice as likely to have been victimised by violence or crime than adults.4 Youth violence therefore takes a great toll on the wellbeing of South Africa’s youth.

There are several characteristics that distinguish youth violence from violence among adults and motivate for specific interventions. Most significantly, youth violence is distinct as a result of the unique characteristics of youth and the specific effects of violence on young people.

South Africa's National Youth Policy (2009-2014) defines youth as persons from 15-34 years old.6 This age range is characterised by the transition from childhood into adolescence and adulthood. It represents an important period of development and change in a young person’s life.

An important feature of this age range are the vulnerabilities young people face at this time as a result of their lack of independence, lack of maturity, propensity to take risks and susceptibility to peer influence.

Youth are also treated differently in the eyes of South African law, as persons under the age of 18 are still considered children and therefore are managed differently within the criminal justice system.

Young people can be harmed in more significant and long-lasting ways than adults from exposure to and perpetration of violence, due to their vulnerability and ongoing development.

The impact of violence inflicted on children, and young people, is particularly important to consider in that it can often initiate or catalyse a pathway to violence and offending by the victim.

Addressing the root causes of youth violence and thus preventing youth from becoming victims or perpetrators of crime in the first place can significantly reduce the prevalence of violence and crime in South African society at large as the youth age and enter adulthood.

 

Categorising youth violence

Violence can typically be categorised in a specific way that takes into account its varying nature and manifestations. This categorisation is helpful for understanding the types of violence committed and for developing appropriate responses.

 

Physical violence

This form of aggression includes any action that causes physical harm, and at the extreme, murder of the victim. For youth this may mean receiving any sort of beating by an adult, or youth physically assaulting each other or an adult.

Psychological violence

This type of violence involves acts of harassment intended to degrade the victim, exert control over him or her, and stand in the way of their autonomy. Such acts include threats, harassment and intimidation. There are many ways in which young people may experience or perpetrate psychological  violence, such as bullying or cyberbullying.

Sexual violence

This type of violence involves subjecting a victim to sexual activity against their will and includes sexually abusing minors. Sexual violence can occur within families and is usually, athough not always, perpetrated by a male. Young people, particular young girls, may experience sexual violence at the hands of peers or adults. Young people may also victimise other youth or adults sexually.

 

The WHO's World Report on Violence and Health5 identifies three further sub‐types of violence that speak to the victim‐perpetrator relationship.

 

This form of violence refers to intentional and harmful behaviours directed at oneself, which might result in suicide and behaviours where the intent is self‐destructive, but not lethal (for example: self‐mutilation). Many youth are known to inflict violence against themselves and suicide and self-mutilation often occur at high rates in this age group.

This type of aggression refers to violence between individuals and is further divided as follows:

  • Family and intimate partner violence, which includes child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, and elder abuse.
  • Community violence, a category of violence that can be perpetrated by acquaintances and strangers. Such violence occurs within the community environment, on the streets or in public spaces. 

This type of aggression refers to violence committed by larger groups of individuals and can be divided into social, political, and economic violence.

 

For more general information on violence, have a look at "What is violence?". 

 

Youth violence in South Africa

In South Africa, youth violence has a long history and is experienced by a significant portion of the country’s youth. For example, in 2013, non-natural deaths accounted for more than a third of all deaths of people between the ages of 15 and 29 years.

For boys, just under a fifth of these were as a result of assault.7 For girls, this number was much lower at around a tenth. Indeed, a general finding is that boys in South Africa tend to be the most affected by violence, with the one exception of sexual violence, which is experienced at higher rates by girls.

Youth violence is deeply normalised in South Africa, as for many decades youth have been involved in political, criminal and gang-related violent activity.8It is fundamentally influenced by the high levels of violence throughout South African society at large. As a result the line between victim and perpetrator often is difficult to determine because so many young perpetrators have also been victims of severe violence Many South African youth are repeatedly exposed to violence in their homes, schools and communities as well as amongst their peers, both as victims and witnesses.

The home environment

Many South African youth are exposed to violence in the home from an early age. This includes intimate partner violence between caregivers, violence between other adult family members and abuse perpetrated against children.

Cases of children being victimised sexually by adults and other children in the home are not uncommon and other forms of physical abuse are often noted in the home. In particular, corporal punishment is widely practiced as a form of discipline in South Africa, in many instances taking especially violent forms that result in injuries.

A 2008 study found that 53% of young people had often seen their families lose their tempers, 24% had been physically punished by their parents and 11% had seen family members hurting one another.9 In addition, 11.1% of young people have witnessed people in their family intentionally attacking one another either physically or with a weapon.

The school environment

Youth who show an interest in their schooling by working hard to obtain good marks are less likely to engage in criminal behaviour.
Young people in South Africa are exposed different types of violence in the school setting, including sexual violence.

According to a 2012 study, 22.2% of high school learners experience some form of violence in schools.10 6.3% of learners experience assault, 4.7% experience sexual assault and 12.2% experience threats of violence. A study in Gauteng found that 61% of learners said that fellow learners sometimes brought weapons to school. Many learners in South Africa are fearful of certain places within their schools environment, such as the bathrooms, and are also scared of travelling to and from school because they are vulnerable to violence in these spaces.

Although teachers are responsible for some of the violence perpetrated in schools, by and large, learners are the most frequent perpetrators of violence within schools. They are also more likely to verbal abuse a teacher than the other way around.

However, teachers were more likely to assault learners than learners were to assault teachers.  In fact, although corporal punishment is illegal in schools in South Africa, 49.8% of learners in 2012 reported being given corporal punishment as a form a discipline in schools. Learners do however perpetrate violence against educators, although this is not well documented.

In many cases, schools are therefore also violent places, with young people both perpetrating violence against fellow learners and teachers as well as being victimised or witnessing violence. The effects of this early socialising to violence experienced by some, can have a significant impact of normalising the use of violence among young people.

The community environment

Awareness of the averse effects of alcohol and substance abuse supports youth resilience to violent or criminal behaviour.
Neighbourhoods and communities can be violent places in South Africa, with young people often being victimised or victimising others. Young people are exposed to various kinds of violence while commuting to and from school, for example, or while socialising in the community.

The freedom of mobility and access in the neighbourhood environment means that young people may be robbed, attacked or even sexually victimised while out and about in the community. They may also witness violence between members of their community. The community is often a site where young people perpetrate violence against each other in the form of fights, robbery or sexual violence.

One of the most violent activities to occur in some communities is gangsterism, which often particularly effects the youth. All over the country, but particularly within metropolitan centres such as Cape Town, gangs operate in ways that can be especially violent. For example, tensions between gangs can result in the frequent shooting of gang members and community members are often caught in the cross fire of these attacks.11

People are usually recruited into gangs from a young age because of their vulnerability and their potential to face softer legal consequences as a result of being under the age of 18. Thus, many young people are exposed to, and frequently perpetrate, criminal and violent activity long before they reach 18.

This can have a significant impact on their wellbeing and the trajectory of their lives, with many young people either being killed as a result of their gang membership or remaining involved in violent or criminal lifestyles for life. Dated estimates from the Western Cape suggest the over 100 000 people in the Cape Flats are gang members and recruiting activity suggests that the numbers may have grown.12 This indicates a high risk for young people living in these areas to be recruited into gangs or exposed to gang-related violence.

The peer environment

In much of the violence experienced by youth, the perpetrator is a peer. Bullying and cyber-bullying is one example where much of the violence is perpetrated by peers. A 2012 study found that 20.9% of learners were the victim of some form of cyber aggression.13

Another kind of peer violence is sexual violence, and especially intimate-partner violence, between young people in their early romantic relationships. Many young girls report that their first sexual experience is coerced or forced and there are many instances of young boys experiencing sexual abuse at the hands of their peers. One study found that a significant proportion of South African men have raped someone and that many started during their teens.14

 

From risk to resilience: A framework for prevention

What makes people violent?

For more information on risk factors and protective factors that can influence a young person's susceptibility to violent behaviour, read "What makes people violent? A look at the ecological model".

There is no single reason that explains why some youth resort to violence. It is the exposure to a variety of risk factors – ranging from the experience of violence to dysfunctional family structures or drug abuse – that can draw a young person into violence and crime. This experience is often compounded by social marginalisation, poverty or a lack of future prospects.

Prevention requires understanding the factors that influence violence. The so-called socio-ecological model offers a useful guide by differentiating risk factors along four levels – the individual, relationship, community and society. These levels of our social environment interact with and reinforce one another.

If we are to work effectively to end (youth) violence, we must address these factors at each level.  The socio-ecological model provides a better understanding of violence and the effect of potential prevention strategies. It allows us to address the factors that put youth at risk of experiencing or perpetrating violence.

 

Resilience factors in youth violence prevention

Building onto the socio-ecological model, the CJCP‘s Youth Resilience project recognised that young people are shaped by their family unit, school, network of peers and community.15

Resilience factors, therefore, are those factors in a young person’s life that work to decrease the likelihood they will take up violent behaviours.16 More specifically, these factors provide a buffer against exposure to risk factors and the onset of delinquent and criminal involvement.

The project identified nine key factors that served to enhance the resilience of young people to risk factors:

  1. Education: Youth who show an interest in their schooling by working hard to obtain good marks are less likely to engage in criminal behaviour than those who do not show an interest in their schooling.
  2. Gender: A 2009 study found that men commit more crimes than women and gender was found to be a significant protective factor against offending.17 Men are more likely to have friends who engage in delinquent activities, and studies have found that men are more vulnerable than women to the negative influences of their deviant friends.18
  3. Non‐violent family environments: Young people who are raised in homes where disputes are resolved without violence are less likely to engage in criminal behaviour than those who are raised in violent homes.
  4. Non‐exposure to criminal role models: Young people who are not exposed to anti-social role-models within their family environments are more likely to refrain from criminal behaviour. Not having family members who had a history of criminal activity, such as stealing, selling of stolen goods, mugging and assaulting others, is also a significant variable in predicting resilience.
  5. Substance abstinence: The absence of substance use was found to be a significant protective factor against offending. Young people who do not use substances are less likely to commit criminal offences than those who consume alcohol or use drugs.
  6. Interaction with non‐delinquent peers: Young people who socialise with peers who have never been arrested are more likely to refrain from engaging in criminal behaviour than those who interact with peers who have been arrested. Similarly, those whose friends have never dropped out of school are twice as likely not to commit an offence than those young people whose friends have dropped out of school.
  7. Victimisation: Young people who have never been the victim of crime are less likely to commit a criminal offence than those who have ever been robbed, assaulted, raped/sexually assaulted, hijacked, had their home burgled or their property stolen.
  8. Neighbourhood factors: Young people without access to weapons in the areas in which they live are more likely to refrain from becoming involved in criminal activity than those for whom it was easy to obtain a firearm in their residential areas.
  9. Attitudes intolerant of violence and anti‐social behaviour: Young people who do not believe that people who have hurt them deserve to have bad things happen to them are twice as likely to refrain from offending as those who hold the opposite opinion.

 

Where do we start? Levels of violence prevention

Efforts for preventing youth violence require a comprehensive approach that aims to reduce the risk factors and strengthen resilience amongst youth. Such efforts can be carried out at three levels – primary prevention, secondary prevention and tertiary prevention.19

...seeks to stop violent behaviours from occurring in the first place. 

Activities may be focused on children from pre-birth through school age to adolescence, and their parents or principal caregivers.

Interventions include parenting initiatives, life and social skills training for children, and efforts to harness the violence-reducing effects of policies that address wider causal factors such as social and economic inequality, social and cultural norms that support the use of violence, and access to guns, alcohol and illicit drugs.

...aims to halt the progression of violence once it is established. This is achieved by early detection followed by prompt, effective treatment.

This may include a focus on children and young people aged between 10 and 21 years.

Activities might include diversion from the criminal justice system and positive opportunities for young people, mentoring schemes and social education, or alcohol treatment.

...involves the rehabilitation of people with an established violent behaviour or affected as a victim.

Activities might include programmes for violent offenders within prisons and with victims in the community to minimize the impact of violence on them.

 

Useful Sources

Ward, Cathrine L., Van der Merwe, Amelia & Dawes, A (2012). Youth Violence: Sources and Solutions in South Africa, Cape Town: UCT Press.

The Presidency (March 2009) South African National Youth Policy 2009 – 2014, Available at: http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/MediaLib/Downloads/Home/Publications/YouthPublications/NationalYouthPolicyPDF/NYP.pdf

Leoschut, L. (2009). Running Nowhere Fast: Results of the 2008 National Youth Lifestyle Study, Monograph Series, No. 6. Cape Town: Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention.

Burton P & Leoschut L (2013). School Violence in South Africa: Results of the 2012 National School Violence Study, Monograph Series, No 12, Cape Town: Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention.

Burton P Leoschut, L & Bonora, A (2009). Walking the Tightrope: Youth Resilience to crime in South Africa, Monograph Series, No. 5. Cape Town: Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention.

 

References

  1.  UNODC Global Study on Homicide, 2012
  2.  WHO (2015). Youth violence. Factsheet No 356. Available at http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs356/en/
  3.  Burton P Leoschut, L & Bonora, A (2009). Walking the Tightrope: Youth Resilience to crime in South Africa, Monograph Series, No. 5. Cape Town: Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention.
  4.  Leoschut, L. (2009). Running Nowhere Fast: Results of the 2008 National Youth Lifestyle Study, Monograph Series, No. 6. Cape Town: Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention.
  5.  The Presidency (March 2009) South African National Youth Policy 2009 – 2014, Available at:  http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/MediaLib/Downloads/Home/Publications/YouthPublications/NationalYouthPolicyPDF/NYP.pdf
  6.  Krug, EG, Mercy, J A, Dahlberg, L L &Zwi A (2002). The world report on violence and health, The Lancet 360, no. 9339: 1083-1088. Available at:    http://www.ayamm.org/english/Violence%20against%20women%204.pdf
  7.  Statistics South Africa (2014). Mortality and causes of death in South Africa, 2013: Findings from death notification. Available at: http://beta2.statssa.gov.za/publications/P03093/P030932013.pdf
  8. Ward, Cathrine L., Van der Merwe, Amelia & Dawes, A (2012). Youth Violence: Sources and Solutions in South Africa, Cape Town: UCT Press.
  9. Leoschut, L. (2009). Running Nowhere Fast: Results of the 2008 National Youth Lifestyle Study, Monograph Series, No. 6. Cape Town: Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention.
  10. Burton P & Leoschut L (2013). School Violence in South Africa: Results of the 2012 National School Violence Study, Monograph Series, No 12, Cape Town: Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention.
  11. News 24 (8 August 2012) “Boy injured in gang shooting.” Available at: http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Boy-injured-in-gang-shooting-20120708
  12. Ward, C & Cooper, A (2012) Chapter 11: Gangs and child safety, In Van Niekerk, A, Suffla, S & Seedat, M (Eds.). Third review: Crime, Violence and Injury in South Africa: 21st Century Solutions for Child Safety. South African Medical Research Council.
  13. Burton P & Leoschut L (2013). School Violence in South Africa: Results of the 2012 National School Violence Study, Monograph Series, No 12, Cape Town: Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention.
  14. Dunkle KL, Jewkes RK, Brown HC et al. Gender-Based Violence, Relationship Power and Risk of Prevalent HIV Infection among Women Attending Antenatal Clinics in Soweto, South Africa. Lancet 2004; 363: 1415–1421
  15. Khan F., Arnolds L & Burton P (2009). Beating the odds: Building Youth Resilience to crime in South Africa, the Groblershoop Youth Resilience Demonstration Project. Available at: http://www.cjcp.org.za/uploads/2/7/8/4/27845461/issue_paper_5_-_groblershoop_youth_resiliency_project.pdf
  16. Leoschut L. & Patrick B. (2009). Building Resilience to Crime and Violence in Young South Africans. Available at: http://www.cjcp.org.za/uploads/2/7/8/4/27845461/research_bulletin_4_-_building_resiliency_to_crime_nyrs.pdf
  17. Burton P Leoschut, L & Bonora, A (2009). Walking the Tightrope: Youth Resilience to crime in South Africa, Monograph Series, No. 5. Cape Town: Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention.
  18. Crosnoe R, Glasgow Erickson K & Dornbusch SM, Protective functions of family relationships and the school factors on the deviant behaviour of adolescent boys and girls: Reducing the impact of risky friendships, Youth & Society 33 (4), 2002, pp. 515-544.
  19. Carnochan J, Butchart A, Mikton C, Shepherd J (200). Violence Prevention. An invitation To intersectoral action . Available at: http://www.who.int/violenceprevention/about/intersectoral_action.pdf