This thesis examines risk and protective factors associated with youth offending and how these have been applied to legislation, prevention and intervention. The first chapter reviews current trends in youth offending and approaches to treatment and interventions with young offenders. The second chapter reviews current literature on risk and protective factors to youth offending and how this has radically changed the Youth Justice System. The risk and protective factors paradigm is then applied to an empirical research study in the third chapter. Findings from the empirical research study suggest that completers and non-completers of a community based program differ in terms of their anger levels and their current educational status. The fourth chapter applies the risk and protective factors paradigm to a qualitative case study in order to demonstrate the intrinsic relationship between risk and protective factors and the applicability of the paradigm to interventions. Chapter five presents a critique of the Children’s Nowicki-Strickland Internal External (CNSIE) locus of control scale, as internal locus of control has been identified as protective factor to youth offending. However, findings from the empirical study and case study suggests that locus of control is not a protective factor for the current sample. The main conclusion derived from the thesis is identification of risk and protective factors associated with youth offending is relatively simple. However applying and implementing protective factors in intervention is much more difficult in reality. This has implications for future initiatives aimed at preventing youth offending.