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“I’m looking forward to getting out and changing my life” were the words of 17-year-old Nanaia Bishop, whom TVNZ senior reporter John Campbell met again four years ago – a young offender who managed to break the cycle.

The likelihood that an offender has offended a young person in the past is alarmingly high, and statistically they are likely to offend again.

When John met Nanaia, who was in a juvenile prison for a serious robbery and car theft, four years ago he told her he wanted something more: “I’m looking forward to getting out. And um, change my life… beauty therapist,” he said.

His childhood had always been violent and he had ended up in a place where others were irreparably broken.

And today, four years later, Nanaia is a creative artist.

He says being accepted into the course was a change for him, “because I wasn’t doing well at school, I always did these things. And even just coming to the course and being accepted, somewhere I deserve. Because I liked it. Because I was passionate about it. That’s when it started.”

Nanaia was victorious. As John says: “The girl did wrong [became] a woman who does good.

Watch the full story above, and read John Campbell’s interview with the teenage rams. is it.