Summary

Research shows that children and young people who have been maltreated 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 policymakers in getting the best outcomes for these young people.

Using data from the child protection and youth justice supervision linked data collection, this report, the eighth in the series, presents information on young people under youth justice supervision during 2022–23 who had an interaction with the child protection system in the 10 years between 1 July 2013 and 30 June 2023.

This report is the first in the series to incorporate 10 years of child protection data, compared with the 5 years of data included in previous reports. The additional 5 years of data that are now available allow for a better picture of the overlap between young people under youth justice supervision and their interaction with the child protection system. For more information, see Box 2 in Section 1.5 of the report.

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

Chapter 2 examines the characteristics of young people under youth justice supervision (community-based supervision or detention) during 2022–23 who had an interaction with the child protection system (including investigated notifications, care and protection orders or out-of-home care) in the 10 years from 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2023.

Box 1: Overlap of young people in community-based supervision and detention

Young people can be in both community-based supervision and detention during the year so the sum of these types of supervision will not equal the total number of young people under youth justice supervision. For example, at some point during 2022–23, 7,874 young people were under community-based supervision and 4,574 were in detention, but only 9,068 distinct young people were under youth justice supervision over the same period.

Of the 9,068 young people under youth justice supervision during 2022–23:

  • 4,494 were only under community-based supervision
  • 1,194 were only in detention
  • 3,380 were in both community-based supervision and detention at some point.

The analysis in this report is based on the 7,874 young people under community-based supervision and the 4,574 young people in detention. This means that young people will be counted in the populations for both community-based supervision and detention.

Almost two-thirds of young people under youth justice supervision during 2022–23 had an interaction with the child protection system in the last 10 years

Of the 9,068 young people under youth justice supervision during 2022–23, more than 1 in 4 (29%) had an interaction with the child protection system during 2022–23 and almost two-thirds (65%) had an interaction with it in the last 10 years.

A higher proportion of young people in detention (70%) had an interaction with the child protection system in the last 10 years than young people in community-based supervision (66%).

A higher proportion of females than males under youth justice supervision had an interaction with the child protection system

Of the 9,068 young people under youth justice supervision, 7,114 were males and 1,944 were females (10 young people were of unspecified sex). A higher proportion of females than males under youth justice supervision had an interaction with the child protection system in the last 10 years (76% and 62%, respectively).

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, more than 9 in 10 (94%) had an interaction with the child protection system at some point in the last 10 years. 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, or 18 and over, at their first supervision were the least likely to have had an involvement with the child protection system – 46% and 37%, 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 with child protection occurred before the 10 years of child protection data included in this analysis (from 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2023).

About 3 in 4 First Nations young people under youth justice supervision had an interaction with the child protection system

About 3 in 4 (76%) First Nations young people under youth justice supervision during 2022-23 had an interaction with child protection services in the last 10 years. More than half (55%) of non-Indigenous young people had an interaction with child protection services in the same 10-year period.

First Nations young people were 26 times as likely as non-Indigenous young people to have been under youth justice supervision during 2022–23 and to have had an interaction with the child protection system in the last 10 years (211 per 10,000 compared with 8.1 per 10,000, respectively).

Young people under youth justice supervision and their interactions with selected child protection services

Chapter 3 examines those young people under youth justice supervision (community-based supervision and detention) during 2022–23 who had an interaction with selected components of the child protection system in the 10 years from 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2023, by the type of child protection services experienced (investigated notifications, care and protection orders and out-of-home care).

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 two-thirds of young people under youth justice supervision during 2022–23 had been the subject of an investigated notification in the last 10 years

Almost two-thirds (62%) of young people under youth justice supervision during 2022–23 were the subject of investigated notifications in the last 10 years.

About 1 in 2 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 1 in 2 young people were the subject of a substantiated notification for any type of abuse in the last 10 years – 45% of young people under community‑based supervision and 50% of young people in detention during 2022–23.

Substantiations of emotional abuse and neglect were most common for young people under community-based supervision (50% and 45%, respectively) and in detention (46% and 48%, respectively) during 2022–23 who had been the subject of one or more substantiated notifications of abuse in the last 10 years.

Just over a quarter of young people under youth justice supervision during 2022–23 were placed on a care and protection order in the last 10 years

Just over 1 in 4 (27%) young people under community-based supervision and just under 1 in 3 (30%) young people in detention during 2022–23 were placed on a care and protection order in the last 10 years.

Of those young people under community-based supervision who had been on a care and protection order in the last 10 years, most had been on a finalised guardianship or custody order (80%), with a smaller proportion on a third-party parental responsibility order (19%).

Of those young people in detention who had been on a care and protection order in the last 10 years, most had been on a finalised guardianship or custody order (80%), with a smaller proportion having been on a finalised supervisory order (15%).

About 1 in 4 young people under youth justice supervision had at least one placement in out-of-home care at some point in the last 10 years; of these, about two-thirds had at least one placement in residential care

One in 4 (25%) young people under community-based supervision during 2022–23 had been in out-of-home care in the 10 years from 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2023. Of those, about two‑thirds (68%) had at least one placement in residential care and over 3 in 4 (78%) had at least one placement in foster or relative/kinship care in the last 10 years.

More than 1 in 4 (28%) young people in detention had been in out-of-home care. Of those, about two-thirds (66%) had at least one placement in residential care and 79% had at least one placement in foster or relative/kinship care in the last 10 years.

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

Almost 2 in 5 (39%) young people under community-based supervision who had been in out‑of-home care had 5 or more placements in the last 10 years. Of those in detention who had been in out-of-home care, 43% had 5 or more placements.