Nicro, the South African National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Reintegration of Offenders, remains the only national non-government organisation providing comprehensive crime prevention services across South Africa.
The main provider of diversion services for children in South Africa has been operating since 1992 and also educates children on crime prevention and teaches them to raise awareness in the community, to help their peers.
The diversions have a high success rate in preventing re-offending and in reintegrating children into their families and communities.
Nicro handles more than 10 000 diversion cases each year in all nine provinces.
The institute has five diversion programmes:
- The Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES), a life-skills programme of six weeks;
- Pre-Trial Community Service (PTCS), in terms of which the offender performs community service at a non-profit organisation;
- Victim-Offender Mediation (VOM), in which the victim and offender meet and work out a mutually acceptable agreement;
- Family Group Conferences, which are similar to VOM, except they involve the families of the victim and offender in the process; and
- The Journey, aimed at high-risk children; the programme lasts between three and 12 months and involves life-skills training, amongst other things.
The children celebrated at the graduation all completed the programme offered by Nicro.
The day was enjoyed by both the students receiving their certificates, but also their parents and Dawnview High School.
