Young People Under Youth Justice Supervision With Varying Child Protection Histories: An Analysis of Group Differences

Abstract

There is now convincing evidence that childhood maltreatment is associated with youth offending; however, relatively little is known about the characteristics and needs of those who are involved in both the child protection and youth justice systems, and the extent to which these might differ according to level of child protection involvement. This study reports the characteristics and needs of 2,045 young people who were under supervision in secure custody or detention in South Australia between 1995 and 2012 according to the level of exposure to the child protection system in an Australian jurisdiction. Five groups of young offenders were compared: (a) no known child protection notificatio..