Much of developmental life-course criminology (DLC) research has been devoted to identifying early life and proximal risk factors for adolescent offending, however an understanding of how these risks combine to shape a causal path to offending has been lacking until recently. Wikstrom and colleagues' Situational Action Theory (SAT) (2012) articulates a causal model of crime, contending that offending behaviour can be predicted by the interaction of an individual's offending propensity and their exposure to criminogenic settings. While evidence has accrued supporting SAT in general population adolescent samples, SAT has not yet been examined in justice-involved adolescent populations, where high frequency offending behaviour is more prevalent. We examined the core proposition of SAT in a sample of 3287 adolescents aged 10 to 16 years who were sentenced to their first supervised youth justice order in Queensland, Australia, drawing on linked youth justice data, proven offences and assessments undertaken using the YLS-CMI, a structured assessment tool designed to capture risks of antisocial behaviour. A series of OLS regression models with robust standard errors was used to examine how indicators of offending propensity and criminogenic exposure predict reoffending among youthjustice-involved adolescents. Results indicated a significant interaction between offending propensity and criminogenic exposure on reoffending injustice-involved adolescents, supporting the central proposition of SAT. However, strong main effects for criminogenic exposure emerged, with offending propensity having less relative influence on reoffending. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Despite a substantial body of work on offending trajectories, limited knowledge exists about how certain life-course experiences and events are associated with female offending trajectories. Our study aims to address this gap by integrating the Developmental Life-course Criminology framework, General Strain Theory, and the feminist pathways perspective to explore how the history of childhood maltreatment, mental illness, and other life-course experiences vary across female offending trajectories. We achieved this by using linked, administrative data for all females registered as born in Queensland (Australia) in 1983 and 1984. Findings indicate that motherhood, mental health-related contact, receiving a mental health diagnosis, and childhood maltreatment were particularly prevalent among females following early onset, escalating, and chronic offending patterns. In contrast, marriage was more frequently observed among females classified in non-offending and low-rate offending trajectories. These findings have important implications for targeted policies and interventions to reduce female crime and improve well-being.

Despite growing research on the youth crime decline, there has been limited analysis of how these trends have influenced offending in cohorts born after the mid-1990s. This study aimed to examine changes in offending trajectories among Australian adolescents with a proven offence aged 10 to 16 years across 12 consecutive birth cohorts (1995 to 2006), in Queensland, Australia. Findings indicate that the number of adolescents with a proven offence decreased by 44% from the oldest to the youngest cohort. However, within recent birth cohorts of justice-involved adolescents, there have been significant increases in high frequency and violent offending. Additionally, despite declines in offending participation, First Nations adolescents have become more over-represented in the youth justice system, due to steeper declines in offending participation for non-First Nations adolescents. Latent class growth analysis was used to identify offending trajectories across the birth cohorts. Multinomial logistic regression indicated that recent cohorts of justice-involved adolescents were significantly more likely to display moderate or chronic offending trajectories, compared to low-level offending. Findings suggest that while criminogenic risk has reduced across the majority of adolescents in recent birth cohorts, for a subset of adolescents it has also increased. Theoretical and policy implications are explored.

BackgroundDespite increasing empirical support for primary intervention in the early development of mental disorders, limited lifespan developmental research exists to identify the potential timing of such interventions. This study takes a novel approach by applying Group Based Trajectory Modelling (GBTM) to identify patterns of outpatient mental health service (MHS) contacts over the early life-course. GBTM is a statistical method that can assist in identifying subgroups in a population that follow similar developmental trajectories over time.MethodsWe analyzed longitudinal (age ≈10 to 23 years) outpatient MHS contact data for an Australian birth cohort (N = 5,359) using GBTM. We examined variation across trajectory groups by sex, Indigenous status (non-Indigenous/Indigenous Australians), psychiatric diagnoses associated with hospital admissions, place of residence (metropolitan, regional, remote), and socioeconomic status.ResultsFour distinct trajectories of MHS contacts were identified, including escalating (5.8%), low (64.5%), adolescent limited (14.5%), and childhood peak declining (15.3%) trajectories. The escalating contacts trajectory group contained the fewest individuals (n = 308) but accounted for the highest proportion of contacts (32.3%), providing evidence of the need for and potential value of early identification and intervention for these individuals. Variations were also noted across trajectory groups for place of residence, socioeconomic status, and diagnosed mental disorders from hospital admissions.ConclusionsGBTM can assist examination of variations in MHS contacts across the life course. Efficacious intervention with a small but distinct group of vulnerable individuals may meaningfully impact available system resources and improve their outcomes.

This study fills existing knowledge gaps by examining the links between Child Protection System (CPS) notifications and Criminal Justice System (CJS) contacts into young adulthood, with consideration of both lifetime Mental Health (MH) system contacts and the characteristics of CPS contacts (including Out-Of-Home Care [OOHC]). We utilised state-wide longitudinal linked administrative data for all individuals registered as born in Queensland, Australia in 1990 (N = 45,153; 48.6% female). Data include all CPS notifications (including maltreatment types) and periods of OOHC (0-17 years, inclusive), all official offending contacts from age 10 to 24 years (police cautions, proven offences in court, detention/incarceration), and MH contacts between ages 4/5 to 23/24 years. Findings extend understanding of the complexity of CPS-CJS links. While many CPS-involved individuals remain free of CJS involvement, findings elucidate especially high-risk features of child maltreatment experiences, namely adolescent and persistent maltreatment, neglect, OOHC experienced >= 10 years of age, and comorbid CPS and MH contact. Though the CPS-CJS link was especially pronounced for youth offending, increased risk for adult-onset offending was also evident. Results support cross-sector holistic care for maltreated individuals, trauma-informed responses within detention and correctional practices, and increased intervention and support for adolescents in OOHC. These results provide a reminder that intervention should occur early in a problematic pathway, and not simply early in a life course.

This Special Issue pays tribute to our dear friend and mentor Anna Stewart, Emeritus Professor at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia, who passed away in April of 2021. Anna was a pioneer in the construction and use of large-scale, linked administrative datasets for criminological research, especially in Australia. She recognised the potential of administrative data to help close critical knowledge gaps and promote evidence-informed government responses. Anna was also deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of scholars and moulding "young" minds - graduating 17 scholars with PhDs and laying the foundation for another three, as well as graduating 28 Honours and Master's scholars. Many of the guest editors of this Special Issue were these young minds. Anna's enduring commitment to social justice drove her research, bringing together and inspiring others to form cross-disciplinary teams and use their expertise to advance more equitable outcomes across society. We are honoured to continue her work. Our goal in this Special Issue is to highlight Anna's enduring contributions. We begin with a synopsis of her research journey from her PhD through to her final works, highlighting the foundations she laid and visions she had for ongoing work in this area. We then introduce our contributors to this Special Issue, celebrating their collaborations, innovations, and new frontiers that extend beyond Anna's legacy.

While the causes of the international youth crime decline have been disputed, it has been proposed that changing policing responses may have contributed. This study examines whether increased rates of police-led diversion have contributed to the youth crime decline in Australia. Fixed effects panel regressions were undertaken to examine the association between police diversion rates and youth offending prevalence and reoffending across regions in New South Wales and Victoria from 2005 to 2019. A significant decline in youth offending prevalence in this period was found but also a decline in police diversion rates for young people, and there was a lack of association between diversion rates and youth offending prevalence. In contrast, youth reoffending increased during this period. Notably, regions with higher diversion rates had significantly lower levels of youth reoffending. Findings suggest that police-led diversion is unlikely to have played a primary role in the Australian youth crime decline but may have reduced growth in reoffending in regions where it was used more frequently. Findings also indicate that youth offending declines have been socioeconomically conditioned. Implications for the causes of the youth crime decline and policing responses to young people are discussed.

There is a strong relationship between mental health and female offending, but few studies use longitudinal data to capture the differences in mental health service contact and diagnoses across diverse female offending trajectories. Most studies focus on broad trends, often overlooking how mental health contacts and diagnoses differentially unfold across female offending trajectories. We address this gap by utilising state-wide, linked administrative data for all females registered as born in Queensland (Australia) in 1983 and 1984 to examine the prevalence, timing, and frequency of mental health service contact and diagnoses across distinct female offending trajectories, including comparisons with non-offending females. Females with serious and persistent offending patterns were more likely to have contact with mental health services and receive earlier and more frequent mental health diagnoses than those with low or non-offending patterns. Additionally, females with adult-onset offending patterns were more likely than any other group to contact mental health services before their first recorded offence. Despite a decrease in mental health-related hospital admissions by late adolescence, all offending groups experienced a rise in community mental health contacts as they transitioned into adulthood. This study expands existing evidence by providing insight into the relationship between mental health and female offending trajectories. Our study also provides important implications for policy and practice to improve the mental health and well-being of females involved in the justice system.

To guide prevention and intervention efforts, the prevalence and impact of child sexual abuse (CSA) victimization among detained and incarcerated populations requires further examination, particularly with consideration of multi-type maltreatment experiences and sex-based variations. This longitudinal population-based study explores these relationships in an Australian birth cohort comprising all individuals born in Queensland in 1983 and 1984 (n = 82,409; 48.68% female). Data include all notified and substantiated harm(s) from child protection services (0 to 17 years), and sentences to youth detention and/or adult incarceration between ages 10 and 30. Findings indicate greater prevalence of CSA amongst detained/incarcerated individuals compared to the general population but emphasize the impact of cooccurring maltreatment (particularly neglect) on the likelihood of custodial outcomes. Important sex-based differences were noted in the intersection of CSA victimization and detention/incarceration. Findings reinforce the need for trauma-informed practices when working with custodial populations, particularly females, and highlight opportunities for prevention of detention/incarceration in at-risk populations, in line with a broader public health approach to child protection.

Despite the rise in female offending, we know little about how female offending patterns vary with age and how they compare to those of males. In this study, we used linked administrative data from a 1983 and 1984 Australian birth cohort ( N = 83,362) to estimate offending trajectories separately for males and females and to examine how these patterns vary within and across sex. Results indicated that there was significant heterogeneity within sex, with five offending trajectories identified separately for both males and females. Males and females classified in chronic offending trajectories had the highest mean number of offenses than all other groups, and Indigenous females were more likely than non-Indigenous males to populate chronic and early adult-onset trajectory groups. The findings highlight the importance of recognizing the heterogeneity of female offending pathways to inform effective, targeted, and timely policies and interventions to reduce female offending.

Purpose Studies examining mental disorders among women have primarily focused on either depression, anxiety, or substance use disorders and not included the broader spectrum of mental disorders. Mixed evidence exists on the prevalence rates of mental disorders among mothers. This study compares the prevalence of different mental disorders and mental comorbidities between mothers and non-mothers and assesses correlates of mental disorders among mothers. Methods A population-based birth cohort design was adopted, consisting of 40,416 females born in Queensland, Australia, in 1983/84. Linked administrative data from hospital admissions were used to identify mental disorders. Cumulative incidence curves of different mental disorders were created separately for mothers and non-mothers. Results Mental disorder prevalence among females by age 29–31 years was 7.8% (11.0% for mothers and 5.2% for non-mothers). Mothers were overrepresented in almost all categories of mental disorders, with overrepresentation becoming more pronounced with age. Mothers with a mental disorder were more likely to be unmarried, Indigenous, young at birth of first child, have greater disadvantage, and have a single child, compared to mothers without a mental disorder. Nearly half of the mothers (46.9%) had received a mental disorder diagnosis before having their first child. Conclusions Mothers, particularly unmarried, Indigenous, having greater disadvantage, and younger at birth of first child, represent a unique group with high vulnerability to mental disorders, that begins in childhood and is amplified with age. Presence of significant mental disorder comorbidities among females highlights the critical importance of a comprehensive, integrated approach to prevent and address multiple comorbidities.

In jurisdictions such as Queensland, where the minimum age of criminal responsibility (i.e., 10 years of age) is out of step with international law and Australian human rights obligations, there are significant concerns about the criminalisation of children. These concerns include the potential for ensnaring young people, particularly First Nations children, into the criminal justice system rather than addressing their underlying needs. We use a birth cohort of individuals registered as born in Queensland in 1990 and followed up to age 24 years to examine the characteristics of young people who experienced their first youth justice system contact between ages 10 and 16 years. First Nations youth were significantly overrepresented among those with the earliest ages of contact (i.e., 10-13 years). Early youth justice contact was largely for minor and less serious forms of offending (i.e., property-related), but those with the earliest ages of onset typically went on to experience more persistent and serious offending outcomes up to age 24 years. Raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility alongside the implementation of culturally relevant early intervention, diversion and support services is likely to significantly reduce the overrepresentation of First Nations people in the criminal justice system.

AIMS:Most information about the association between childhood maltreatment (CM) and subsequent psychiatric morbidity is based on retrospective self-reports. Findings from longitudinal studies using prospective reports to statutory agencies may be subject to attrition. We therefore compared the prevalence to age 30 of inpatient psychiatric diagnoses in those who experienced agency-reported CM with those of the rest of the cohort using administrative data to minimise loss to follow-up. METHODS:We used linked administrative data for two birth cohorts of all individuals born in Queensland, Australia in 1983 and 1984 (N = 83,050) and followed to age 30 years. This was the entire cohort aside from 312 people who died. Information on CM came from statewide child protection data and psychiatric diagnoses from all public and private hospital admissions in Queensland. RESULTS:On adjusted analyses, the 4,703 participants (5.7%) who had been notified to the statewide child protection authority had three to eight times the odds of being admitted for any of the following psychiatric diagnoses by age 30 years old: schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, bipolar affective disorders, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). There were similar findings for all the CM subtypes. Associations were especially strong for PTSD with between a seven - and nine-fold increase in the odds of admission. CONCLUSIONS:This is one of the largest studies of the long-term effects of CM, covering an entire jurisdiction. All types of maltreatment are significantly related to a range of psychiatric disorders requiring hospitalisation. Early identification, intervention and providing appropriate support to individuals who have experienced CM may help mitigate the long-term consequences and reduce the risk of subsequent mental health problems.

This study examined specific circumstances precipitating onset sexual offenses in a sample of 278 Australian male youth who have sexually harmed. Offense narratives-a description of how the onset offense was initiated, interactions and behavior that took place leading up to, and during, the offense, and how the offense ended-were qualitatively coded to identify how the sexual offense incidents manifested, particularly the motivations that interacted with opportunities to engage in sexual offending behavior for the first time. Three overarching themes emerged: sexual curiosity and/or gratification in the context of usual activities, broader non-sexual offending behavior that resulted in an opportunistic encounter with the victim, and peer-related influences in the manifestation of sexual offending. The findings highlight the importance of ecosystemic and situational factors in the commission of youth-perpetrated sexual offending which could be addressed to prevent sexual violence.

This study provides an evaluation of recidivism outcomes for a specialized, field-based treatment program for youth who perpetrate sexual offenses in an Australian jurisdiction. Using survival analyses, recidivism outcomes for the treatment group (n = 200), who were followed for an average of 5.07 years (SD = 3.13), were contrasted with a sample of sexually offending youth who were either referred but not accepted or not referred to the program (n = 295). Rates of sexual recidivism were low and not significantly different between the groups (9.5% for treated and 10.8% for untreated). Unadjusted Cox regression results indicated that the treated group were less likely to violently recidivate compared to the untreated group (HR = 1.41, 95% CI [1.01, 1.96]), but this effect became nonsignificant when controlling for offense history covariates (HR = 1.22, 95% CI [0.87, 1.72]). Both groups exhibited high rates of nonsexual offending during the follow-up period, and treatment factors including clinician-rated success, were found to be associated with a lower frequency of reoffending after treatment. Findings highlight important considerations for both practice and research. First, findings suggest the need for specialized programs to ensure factors associated with general recidivism are also addressed in treatment; second, findings reinforce potential utility for clinician-rated and structured assessments to inform treatment planning and outcomes. Finally, the findings raise the importance of appropriate comparison groups when designing evaluation studies, to accurately inform policy and practice.

Mental illness is firmly established as a risk factor for criminal legal system contact, particularly for women and Indigenous people. While patterns of criminal legal contact vary by gender and Indigenous status, we do not know how mental health contacts factor into these patterns. The aim of this research is to examine whether mental health characteristics and service contacts vary across patterns of criminal legal system contact defined by group-based trajectory modelling and to explore whether any such variation is consistent across gender and Indigenous status. Using linked administrative data from a 1990 Australian birth cohort (to age 23/24 years, N = 45,141), we estimate trajectories of criminal legal system contact and assess variation across groups defined by gender and Indigenous status. We then examine whether types of mental illness diagnoses and mental health service contacts varied across trajectory groups and whether this was consistent across gender and Indigenous status. Findings point to important differences in mental health system contact across offending trajectory groups. Differences are suggestive of variation in mental health system utilization at the intersection of gender and Indigenous statuses that are conditioned by patterns of criminal legal system contact. We conclude by outlining the implications of these patterns for life course theories of offending and for gender and culturally informed support and interventions directed towards system-involved individuals with mental health needs.

Notable declines in youth offending have been observed internationally, including in the United States, United Kingdom, European countries, and Australia. The causes of the decline remain disputed; however it has been proposed that changing crime control responses to young people are likely to have played a role in this decline. This study examines this proposition, specifically that increased police-led diversion of young people has played a role in the Australian youth crime decline. Drawing on criminal justice data for 121,887 young people across multiple cohorts (young people born in 1994/95, 1997/98 and 2001/02) and multiple jurisdictions in Australia (New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland), this study finds overall major reductions in the number of low-level youth offenders from older to more recent cohorts, and small growth in chronic youth offending. Regression analysis suggests that rather than increasing, exposure to police-led diversion has decreased for more recent cohorts of young people. Findings support previous empirical work on the positive effects of police-led diversion for young people, with a higher probability of diversion within the first three offences associated with low to moderate offending patterns from ages 10 to 17, rather than chronic offending patterns, and a significantly lower volume of offending.