Crossover Children: Examining Initial Criminal Justice System Contact Among Child Protection-Involved Youth

ABSTRACT

Child protection-involved youth face increased risk of criminal justice system contact. Such “crossover children” experience earlier police involvement and more serious criminal justice sanctions, yet little is known about their early offending. Using a cross-sectional sample of 300 crossover children before three Victorian Children's Courts in 2016–17, this mixed-methods study examines the nature and context of children's initial police charges. Findings indicate that crossover children are initially charged with disproportionately violent offending, and often incur first police charges around the time of initial care placement. For many, initial criminal justice contact occurred in the context of conflict with caregivers, ongoing maltreatment, and household adversity, or emotional and behavioural regulation challenges. Efforts towards preventing offending for child-protection-involved youth should focus on preventing childhood maltreatment, alongside targeting parent–child relationship challenges, and strengthening community and care system responses that address the impacts of complex trauma, mental health problems, and neurodisability.

IMPLICATIONS

• Compared to all sentenced children, those from statutory child protection backgrounds are charged with more serious offending at their first criminal court adjudication.

• Among “crossover children”, earlier police charges were seen for Indigenous children, those experiencing greater cumulative maltreatment, and children with emotional or behavioural challenges related to trauma, mental health, and neurodisability.

• Crossover children are most often first charged by police in the year before, and after, their first out-of-home care placement.

有过儿童保护经历的青年人，面临更多接触刑事司法系统的风险。这种“转变儿童”早先经历了警察干预及更严重的刑事司法处分。只是，我们对他们早先犯事的情况知之不多。本文根据2016-17年维多利亚三个儿童法庭的300位“转变儿童”的截面样本，采用混合方法研究了警察对这些儿童最初指控的性质及语境。研究发现，最初对这些儿童的指控是过度的暴力侵犯，而暴力侵犯多发生于初次看护安置的时候。许多儿童最早遭遇刑事司法，往往是因为与看护人发生冲突、持续受到虐待、在家庭中处境不佳、或遭遇情感及行为管制。因此要防止有过儿童保护经历的青年人实施伤害，重点是要防止打骂儿童，要着眼家长-儿童关系，加强社区及看护体系的反应以解决复合性创伤、精神健康问题、神经障碍等等的影响。

KEYWORDS:

• Child Maltreatment
• Child Welfare
• Crossover Youth
• Delinquency
• Offending Onset
• Juvenile Justice

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge Professor Rosemary Sheehan AM, Judge Amanda Chambers, Magistrate Jennifer Bowles and the staff of the Children's Court of Victoria for their support of this study.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Institute of Criminology (CRG 03/15-16), the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety, and the Australian Research Council (DE190101104).