Summary

Research shows that children and young people who have been abused or neglected are at greater risk of engaging in criminal activity and of entering the youth justice system. Better understanding the characteristics and pathways of children and young people under youth justice supervision who have had an interaction with the child protection system can help to support staff, case workers and policy-makers in getting the best outcomes for these people.

Using data from the child protection and youth justice supervision linked data collection, this report, the seventh in the series, presents information on young people under youth justice supervision during 2020–21 who had an interaction with the child protection system in the 5 years between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2021.

It includes some data from the period in which COVID-19 and related social restrictions were present in Australia, specifically between March 2020 and June 2021.

Young people under youth justice supervision who had an interaction with the child protection system

This section of the report examines the characteristics of young people under youth justice supervision (community-based supervision or detention) during 2020–21 who had an interaction with the child protection system (including investigated notifications, care and protection orders or out-of-home care) in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021.

More than half of young people who had been in youth justice supervision during 2020–21 had also had an interaction with the child protection system in the last 5 years

Of the 9,275 young people under youth justice supervision during 2020–21, more than 1 in 4 (28%) had an interaction with the child protection system during 2020–21 and more than half (53%) had an interaction with it in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021.

Young people in detention (60%) during 2020–21 were more likely than those under community‑based supervision (54%) to have had an interaction with the child protection system in the last 5 years.

The number of young people under youth justice supervision that had an interaction with the child protection system remained stable over the 4 years from 2017–18 to 2020–21

The proportion of young people under youth justice supervision who had had an interaction with the child protection system for each 5-year period ending in 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20 and 2020–21 remained stable, varying between 52% and 54%.

Young females who had been under youth justice supervision were more likely than young males to have had an interaction with the child protection system

While young people under youth justice supervision were almost 4 times as likely to be male than female (7,352 compared with 1,922), young females were more likely to have had an interaction with the child protection system in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021 (71% compared with 49% of young males).

The younger a person was when they first entered youth justice supervision, the more likely they were to have had an interaction with the child protection system

Of those aged 10 at their first youth justice supervision, just over 4 in 5 (81%) had an interaction with the child protection system at some stage in the 5-year period from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021. The likelihood of involvement with the child protection system fell steadily as the age of a young person’s first supervision rose. Those aged 17 and 18 and over at their first supervision were the least likely to have had an involvement – at 31% and 18%, respectively.

However, the actual involvement of young people under youth justice supervision with child protection in the older age groups may be higher than reported if their involvement in child protection occurred before the 5 years of child protection data included in this analysis (from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021).

Indigenous young people under youth justice supervision were more likely than non-Indigenous young people to have had an interaction with the child protection system

Almost 2 in 3 (64%) Indigenous young people under youth justice supervision during 2020–21 had also received child protection services in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021. This compares with just under half (46%) of non-Indigenous young people.

Young people under youth justice supervision had interacted with all components of the child protection system

This section of the report examines those young people under youth justice supervision during 2020–21 who had an interaction with the child protection system in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021, by the type of child protection services experienced.

There are 3 main components of the child protection system:

  • the assessment and investigation of notifications of possible abuse, neglect or other harm. If an investigation is required and finds that the child is being or is likely to be abused, neglected or otherwise harmed, the notification is recorded as substantiated 
  • care and protection orders, which are legal orders or arrangements that give child protection departments some responsibility for a child’s welfare
  • the placement of children in out-of-home care, which is overnight care for which the department has made, or offered, a financial payment to the carer (see Section 1.2 for more detail).

Note that the proportion of young people interacting with these components may not sum to 100% as they may have interacted with multiple components of the system. Similarly, within each service, proportions may not sum to 100% as the young people may have interacted with more than one part of that service. 

Almost half of young people under youth justice supervision during 2020–21 had been the subject of an investigated notification in the last 5 years

Almost half (48%) of young people under youth justice supervision during 2020–21 were the subject of investigated notifications in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021.

About one-third of young people under youth justice supervision were the subject of a substantiated notification for any type of abuse

For both types of youth justice supervision, about one-third of young people were the subject of a substantiated notification for any type of abuse – 30% of young people under community‑based supervision and 36% of young people in detention.

Substantiations for emotional abuse and neglect were most common for young people under community-based supervision (41% and 39%, respectively) and in detention (39% and 41%, respectively) during 2020–21 who had been the subject of one or more substantiated notifications of abuse in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021.

Just under a quarter of young people under youth justice supervision during 2020–21 were placed on a care and protection order

Almost 1 in 4 (23%) young people under youth justice supervision during 2020–21 were placed on a care and protection order in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021.

Of those under community-based supervision who had been on a care and protection order, young people were most likely to have been on a finalised guardianship or custody order (77%) and least likely to have been on a third-party parental responsibility order (9.9%) in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021.

Similarly, of those in detention who had been on a care and protection order, young people were most likely to have been on a finalised guardianship or custody order (78%) and least likely to have been on a third-party parental responsibility order (9.2%) in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021.

About 1 in 5 young people under community-based supervision had at least one placement in out-of-home care at some point in the last 5 years; of these, for 75%, at least one placement was in residential care

Just over 1 in 5 (21%) young people under community-based supervision during 2020–21 had been in out-of-home care in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021. Of those, almost 3 in 4 (75%) had at least one placement in residential care and two-thirds (67%) had at least one placement in foster or relative/kinship care in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021.

Just over 1 in 4 (24%) young people in detention had been in out-of-home care. Of those, almost 3 in 4 (73%) had at least one placement in residential care and 67% had at least one placement in foster or relative/kinship care in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021.

More than 2 in 5 young people under community-based supervision who had been in out-of-home care had 5 or more placements

More than 2 in 5 (45%) young people under community-based supervision who had been in out-of-home care had 5 or more placements in the 5 years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021. Of those in detention who had been in out-of-home care, 47% had 5 or more placements.