University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
Child Abuse Negl. 2017 Feb;64:32-46. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2016.11.028. Epub 2016 Dec 23.
There is convincing evidence that many young people who are in the justice system have had contact with child protection services and that victims of childhood maltreatment are at increased risk of subsequent youth justice involvement. In Australia, however, there have been few longitudinal studies that have examined these associations and relatively less is known in this area. This study examines the overlap between the child protection and youth justice involvement in South Australia, and determines how substantiated maltreatment and variations in these experiences (e.g., the type, timing and recurrence of maltreatment) relate to criminal convictions as a youth. The results show that although the majority of child-protection involved youth do not become convicted offenders, the odds of subsequent convictions are significantly greater both for those with notifications and substantiated maltreatment and for those who had been placed in out-of-home care. Multivariate analyses revealed that the strongest predictors for receiving a conviction among maltreated youth were: male gender, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ethnicity, experiences of physical abuse and emotional abuse, a greater number of substantiations (recurrence), experiencing maltreatment that commenced in childhood and continued into adolescence, and placement in out-of-home care. The mechanisms through which maltreatment might be linked with behavior are then considered, along with directions for future research in this area.
有确凿的证据表明，许多在司法系统中的年轻人曾与儿童保护服务机构有过接触，而童年虐待的受害者随后更有可能卷入青年司法系统。然而，在澳大利亚，很少有纵向研究调查这些关联，这方面的知识相对较少。本研究检查了南澳大利亚州儿童保护和青年司法系统的重叠情况，并确定了虐待行为的证实情况以及这些经历的变化（例如，虐待的类型、时间和复发）与青少年时期的犯罪定罪之间的关系。结果表明，尽管大多数涉及儿童保护的年轻人并没有成为被定罪的罪犯，但无论是接到通知还是虐待行为得到证实的年轻人，还是被安置在家庭之外的年轻人，他们随后被定罪的可能性都显著增加。多变量分析显示，受虐待的年轻人被定罪的最强预测因素是：男性性别、澳大利亚原住民和托雷斯海峡岛民种族、身体虐待和情感虐待经历、更多的证实（复发）、虐待行为始于童年并持续到青春期，以及被安置在家庭之外的护理。然后考虑了虐待行为可能与行为相关的机制，并提出了这一领域未来研究的方向。
