A DOCUMENTATION OF THE EXPERIENCES OF YOUTH OFFENDERS AT THE SINGAPORE BOYS’ HOSTEL (SBHL)

Abstract

This study hopes to document the lived experiences of youth offenders at the Singapore Boys’ Hostel (SBHL) from their perspective, exploring their individual biographies and criminal involvement that led to their eventual residency at SBHL as part of their probation orders, in an attempt to answer the question: How do the youth offenders at SBHL experience the rehabilitation programme at SBHL? There is a lack of qualitative studies documenting how youth offenders feel about being institutionalized, and hence, my thesis is inspired by this gap in the literature and adopts a qualitative approach. 7 youth offenders from ages 15 to 19, who are currently serving their court-mandated hostel residency at SBHL, with differing extents of gang-affiliation, were interviewed in order to gain an understanding of the lived experiences of the boys institutionalized at SBHL, providing them an avenue through which they can share their experiences of the rehabilitation programme at SBHL and its subsequent impact on them. Thus, this thesis seeks to provide a symbolic interactionist approach in understanding how these boys view themselves, their experiences, and speak about their future in their own words, so that concrete measures can be taken to enhance the hostel residency portion of the probation order at SBHL. Hence, this study captures the challenges and strengths of institutional life as experienced by youth offenders at SBHL, elucidating the benefits and oversights of the rehabilitation program at SBHL such that more targeted interventions can be made to address the needs of the SBHL boys.