Justice Griffith Maltreatment and Offending Trajectories: Identifying Pathways for Intervention Anna Stewart Michael Livingston Susan Dennison

Justice Griffith 2 Background This work builds on CRC funded work examining the links between maltreatment and offending This work showed that –maltreated children are more likely to offend than children who are not maltreated –age of final maltreatment predictive –age of first maltreatment not predictive –number of maltreatment incidents predictive –neglect and physical abuse predictive –sexual and emotional abuse not predictive Developmental or Life Course criminology Developmental psychopathology Trajectory analysis –Semi Parametric Group-Based Method

Justice Griffith 3 Research Questions How many distinctive child maltreatment trajectories can be identified? Is there a relationship between these trajectories and offending as a juvenile?

Justice Griffith 4 Method 1983 and 1984 birth cohorts All children had turned 18 –turned 10 in 1993 and 1994 Maltreatment –Child protection records (DoF) substantiations and ‘at risk’ calculated the count at each year Offending –Cautioning records (QPS) –Juvenile Court records (DoF) Longitudinal design –Advantages –Disadvantages

Justice Griffith 5 Summary statistics Child maltreatment –7% of population maltreated (5, 887 children) 47% male (52% of pop. male) 14% Indigenous (4.4% of pop. Indigenous) max no of maltreatment = 17 Offending –17% of population offend –27% of maltreated children offended 60% male Indigenous 36% female Indigenous 33% male non-Indigenous 17% female non-Indigenous

Justice Griffith 6 Trajectory analysis

Justice Griffith 7 Early peaking groups

Justice Griffith 8 Early peaking groups 16.7% offend

Justice Griffith 9 Early peaking groups 20.8% offend 16.7% offend

Justice Griffith 10 Early peaking groups 36.0% offend 20.8% offend 16.7% offend

Justice Griffith 11 Late peaking groups

Justice Griffith 12 Late peaking groups 34.5% offend

Justice Griffith 13 Late peaking groups 34.5% offend 51.4% offend

Justice Griffith 14 Late peaking groups 34.5% offend 65.1% offend 51.4% offend

Justice Griffith 15 What does it all mean? maltreated children are more likely to offend –if maltreated when they are older –if suffer chronic maltreatment offending is only one negative life outcome transitions and turning points –transitions are life changing events going to school (preschool to early school age) going to high school (adolescence) –turning points are when the transitions are not negotiated maltreatment is a significant risk factor for not negotiating a transition

Justice Griffith 16 why does maltreatment occur at the transitions? –is it surveillance? –family stress at transitions? why does maltreatment in older children lead to offending? –more likely to come into contact with police? –more likely to leave/be kicked out of home? how can we use this understanding of the impact of the transition to mitigate the effects of maltreatment? –school based programs?