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In this chapter, the author analyzes sentencing and incarceration practices in South Africa during the last 20 years, a period which saw the country transforming into a fully flexed democracy.

The concepts of sentencing, mandatory minimum sentencing, sentencing of children and incarceration are discussed. The past 20 years of democracy serve as a point of departure for this discussion. The retrospective nature of the adopted approach necessitates a heavy reliance on existing literature, but a statistical analysis is also relied upon. The author also reflects on research conducted during the last 20 years.

While it is almost impossible to duly consider all sentencing-related developments in democratic South Africa, important advances have been made but they were not always systematically followed through. Well-intended policies have at times been poorly executed. Specially, the correctional system destroyed all types of staff motivation through poor human resource practices.

Few scholars have considered the influence of sentencing practices on the South African inmate population, more particularly during the period of democracy that has been running for 20 years. This influence in the South African criminal justice system will be highlighted. The contribution of sentencing in the democratization of the country may be drawn from this discussion. The study may contribute to policy implementation for decades to come and through that, strengthen the South African democracy. At the same time, lessons from South Africa may serve as a roadmap for other young and established democracies.

Drawing from social cognitive theory, the purpose of this study is to examine how personal, environmental and behavioral factors can interplay to influence people's use of YouTube as a learning resource.

This study proposed a conceptual model, which was then tested with data collected from a survey with 150 participants who had the experience of using YouTube for learning. The bootstrap method was employed to test the direct and mediation hypotheses in the model.

The results revealed that personal factors, i.e. learning outcome expectations and attitude, had direct effects on using YouTube as a learning resource (person → behavior). The environmental factor, i.e. the sociability of YouTube, influenced the attitude (environment → person), while the behavioral factor, i.e. prior experience of learning on YouTube, affected learning outcome expectations (behavior → person). Moreover, the two personal factors fully mediated the influences of sociability and prior experience on YouTube usage for learning.

The factors and their relationships identified in this study provide important implications for individual learners, platform designers, educators and other stakeholders who encourage the use of YouTube as a learning resource.

This study draws on a comprehensive theoretical perspective (i.e. social cognitive theory) to investigate the interplay of critical components (i.e. individual, environment and behavior) in YouTube's learning ecosystem. Personal factors not only directly influenced the extent to which people use YouTube as a learning resource but also mediated the effects of environmental and behavioral factors on the usage behavior.