Kate Tillack Justice for Young People conference, November 2018

1. St John’s Youth Services Justice for Young People
Contact with the Justice System:
Experiences of Young People in
Out-of-Home Care
Kate Tillack
Research Officer
CREATE Foundation
© CREATE Foundation

2. © CREATE Foundation

3. How can we reduce the overrepresentation of
young people in care in the justice system?
How do we prevent re-traumatising this
vulnerable population if they do come into
contact with the justice system?
© CREATE Foundation

4. Young people in out-of-home care are
overrepresented in the youth justice system:
AIHW (2018): 13.7% of young people in out-of-home care
between 2013-2017 had youth justice supervision
This is 16 times the rate of the general population;
CREATE (2009): 45.5% of males and 21.6% of females aged
15-25 had contact with police, courts or detention centres.
© CREATE Foundation

5. The link between maltreatment and
offending is complex – interactions of
various individual, social, cultural,
biological risk factors:
• Gender;
• Substance use;
• Education experiences;
• Low socio-economic status.
© CREATE Foundation

6. Certain features of the care experience are
also associated with an increased risk of
offending:
• Placement instability;
• Being placed in a residential facility;
• Lack of support when leaving care.
© CREATE Foundation

7. The Influence of Trauma
Early adversity, neglect, and abuse are associated with
deficits in executive functioning, such as:
• behavioural and emotional regulation; and
• an overly sensitive flight or fight response.
Young people experience trauma prior to entering
care, but also while in out-of-home care.
© CREATE Foundation

8. Spoke with 148 young people aged 18-25 with a care
experience and who identified as having contact with
the justice system:
• 86 offenders;
• 32 victims;
• 18 reported missing;
• 9 experienced court processes following care entry;
• 3 had self-harmed and police attended as part of a crisis
response.
Thematically analysed responses regarding what
led to their police involvement, how they were
treated
by youth justice professionals, and
how they were supported.
© CREATE Foundation

9. Care Criminalisation:
– policies and practises contributing to
overrepresentation of young people with a care
experience in the youth justice system (McFarlane, 2015)
“Police were called out to the residential facility
because I was using bad language towards to
workers.”
(Female, 24)
“We – me and another young person – were angry
with the youth workers so we went to the office in
the residential house and broke the window. The
police came and charged us with wilful damage,
trespassing and break and enter.” (Female, 18)
© CREATE Foundation

10. Care Criminalisation:
– policies and practises contributing to
overrepresentation of young people with a care
experience in the youth justice system (McFarlane, 2015)
“One of the [residential] workers dropped me
of to see a friend at the park, so they were fully
aware of where I was. After an hour I started
receiving phone calls from the resi saying I had
absconded and where was I… about 30-45
minutes the police showed up.”
(Female, 18)
© CREATE Foundation

11. Negative peer influences:
“Had assaulted a teacher at a school. Was
hanging out with the wrong kind of people,
smoking and drinking at school on the last day
of school. A teacher tried to intervene, tried to
take the bottle and cigarettes – I hit the
teacher. Police were called and I got expelled
and the teacher got a restraining order on
me.” (Male, 24)
© CREATE Foundation

12. Negative peer influences:
“…When I got put in care they just bought you
clothes you didn't get much choice, at home I
got to choose the clothes I wore so I had to go
and steal better clothes. Also other kids in the
residential house were doing it, I was only 15
and my first time in care was in a house with
other kids doing crime. I never did this stuff
before I came into care.” (Male, 24)
© CREATE Foundation

13. Anger, frustration and behavioural
escalation—Trauma responses:
“I lost my cool and did unlawful damage to the extent of
$3,500.00. We had rotten food in the cupboards at the
residential house, the youth workers said that the food
was OK to eat but it wasn't. I then took the rotten food
and went to hide it in one of the other young people's
cupboard and found a whole heap of my belonging and
then I started going off about that – one of the youth
workers told me 'to calm down son', from here I went
off, I wanted to bash the young person who stole my
things.” (Male, 19)
© CREATE Foundation

14. Anger, frustration and behavioural
escalation—Trauma responses:
“Me not understanding my emotions and feelings in fiery
situations or climactic situations. I snapped and got
agitated when people weren't understanding my
thoughts and feelings. It resulted in me lashing out and
police being called, and I got charged with something…
Damage to property and verbal and physical assault
towards staff and other residents.” (Male, 20)
© CREATE Foundation

15. Survival Offences:
“I was self selecting to sleep on the streets
and I broke into a building to get a jacket to
wear.” (Male, 18)
“I needed money as I had been released from
Detention, I was living in a shelter and had
nowhere to live and the residential unit
wouldn't have me back, so I re-offended- armed
robbery on a hotel.” (Male, 19)
© CREATE Foundation

16. Young people felt disrespected,
humiliated, and stigmatized by youth
justice officials:
“We were treated as criminals by default. I had a lot of
dreams and looking into doing courses and doing
things to better my life. I feel that the police and courts
contributed to making me feel like crap by not listening
to me - I was just another resi kid in their eyes.”
(Female, 19)
“They made me feel like a bad person, I don’t know
why someone didn’t just sit down and talk to me
about what was going on and why. I had no support,
no one cared. If they had asked me why I could have
told them why I was doing it [stealing] and it might
have been able to be fixed earlier.” (Male, 24).
© CREATE Foundation

17. Police presence can escalate young
people’s behaviour:
“I got more aggravated and started throwing stuff at
the police, so they had to pepper spray and Taser
me. But it was my own fault because I was throwing
things at the female officer. I was taken into custody
overnight.” (Male, 18)
© CREATE Foundation

18. Young people
felt scared and anxious:
“It was so late when they caught me, so my Dad couldn't
even call a social worker. My Dad didn't know what to do.
They took my fingerprints. That made me felt violated. No
one was explaining anything. I didn't tell them anything
because they were against me not with me.” (Female, 25)
“I was scared, anxious and upset and all emotions. I had
all the adrenaline pulsing through my body. They
shouldn't have called the police. The police didn't even
talk to me they were just scary. They just thought I was a
feral child, the reason why I was acting out was because
of my situation at home. They didn't
understand. They should have been better at
handling kids who are in care.” (Female, 22)
© CREATE Foundation

19. Young people
felt scared and anxious:
"Two days later I was caught without a train ticket and
the police said there were two warrants out for my arrest.
No one had told me anything about that, they just said
to tell my side of the story and that was it. They threw
me in a cell, they didn't tell me what was happening and
I didn't get any food until 11.30pm.” (Female, 19)
© CREATE Foundation

20. Some had
positive experiences:
“Police came into the house, they could see I was pretty
tamed. They told me I was under arrest and had to take
me back to the station. They saw I was calm so didn't
cuff me, we just got in the car and went to the station.
They offered me to call legal aid… they recognised it was
an impulsive action and my house manager had talked
me out of it, they let me go without charges.” (Male, 18)
© CREATE Foundation

21. Some had
positive experiences:
“The police were always very supportive, they didn't
treat me like a criminal, they saw that there was
deeper there. Not about the robbery but rather risk
taking. They spoke to me about the risks about
continuing this behaviour could lead to prison.”
(Female, 20)
“I learnt my lesson only because the cops were doing
their jobs and I know not to do that again. The police
were totally fine and was talking to me nicely… obviously
losing $200 sucks but that
was because of my own stupid decision. It was totally
fair.” (Male, 19)
© CREATE Foundation

22. Importance of support:
“Youth Justice worker was pretty relaxed.
Explained everything—got along pretty well.
Even when breached—she was not mean—
always trying to help and support me.” (Male, 24)
“At the time I felt like it was a bit excessive - but I
think it helped me get on the right path. Support
and consistency from youth justice helped
understand what was ok was not ok. Did not get
this from family… All I ever learnt from my family
was how to fight. Youth justice helped me link in
with a lot of services as well.” (Male, 24)
© CREATE Foundation

23. Almost 40% reported no support
during police contact
20% reported no support during
court appearance
© CREATE Foundation

24. “I was allowed to be interviewed because they
were there. They didn’t provide me with any
personal support. I don’t even think they drove
me home. I think the police drove me home.”
(Female, 24)
“I had a youth justice worker when I was
locked up in youth detention but they never
visited me there, I had no contact with them,
they didn’t support me. I didn’t have any
visitors the whole time.” (Male, 24)
Young people felt unsupported
© CREATE Foundation

25. Youth justice system stigmatises young
people in care:
“Not enough is being done to change the stigma
around young people. They automatically assume that
we are bad kids because of our upbringing. There is
always a greater reason behind a crime- people steal
food because they are hungry, people fight because
they may not have any other option.” (Male, 19)
“Police can treat kids in care differently they think we
are a bunch of kids that can’t be handled and don't
have respect for authority, they think we just do what
we want we want. They see kids like us completely
different. Sometimes they give harsher consequences
to kids in care.” (Female, 22)
© CREATE Foundation

26. Young people internalise stigma:
“Young people in care don’t have a stable
environment and police and others assume they
are trouble makers… You feel like people expect
you to do the wrong thing. People don’t give
young people in care a chance to prove
themselves so what are they supposed to do, they
just think ‘oh well I might as well do the wrong
thing’.” (Female, 22)
© CREATE Foundation

27. Youth justice system does not
understand care experiences:
“Young people in care end up with lots of anger
issues and start doing drugs, because they are
influenced by old kids in care. The police treat us
differently, they are always on our back and come
to the house to see us, if they need to ask
questions about stuff.” (Male, 18)
© CREATE Foundation

28. Youth justice system does not
understand care experiences:
“Still think there is a lot of room to work with about
how they build rapport with young people - very
important - without this can't build trust - can't find
out what is really happening for them.” (Male, 24)
“I reckon its tough. They should bring in to the
equation the trauma that is causing young people
to act out, instead of giving out harsh penalties.
They should take into account what’s causing the
young people to act that way.” (Male, 18)
© CREATE Foundation

29. Young people’s ideas to improve the
youth justice system:
• Police should be more empathetic and less
antagonistic;
• Provide young people with more information
about what is happening and why;
• Provide young people with more support;
• Give young people the opportunity to be heard
and believed.
© CREATE Foundation

30. Moving Forward:
• Adoption of a trauma informed youth justice
system:
• Assessing for trauma;
• Clearly explaining judicial processes;
• Careful use of language.
• Link young people to specialist support;
• Addressing care criminalisation:
• Protocols between police and out-of-home care
providers;
• Increased training and education for caregivers.
© CREATE Foundation

31. • Review policy and practice guides: why are caregivers
and caseworkers not providing support for these
young people?
• Ensure placements are suitable for the young
person’s needs;
• Reduce the stigma associated with being in out-of-
home care.
Moving Forward:
© CREATE Foundation

32. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW]. (2018). Young people in child protection and under youth justice
supervision 2013-17. Canberra: Author.
Baskin, D. R., & Sommers, I. (2011). Child maltreatment, placement strategies, and delinquency. American Journal of
Criminal Justice, 36, 106–119.
Bollinger, J., Scott-Smith, S., & Mendes, P. (2017). How complex developmental trauma, residential out-of-home care
and contact with the justice system intersect. Children Australia, 42(2), 108–112.
Branson, C. E., Baetz, C. L., Horwitz, S. M., & Hoagwood, K. E. (2017). Trauma-informed juvenile justice systems: A
systematic review of definitions and core components. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy,
9(6), 635–646.
Malvaso, C. G., Delfabbro, P. H., & Day, A. (2017). The child protection and juvenile justice nexus in Australia: A
longitudinal examination of the relationship between maltreatment and offending. Child Abuse and Neglect, 64, 32–
64.
McDowall, J. J. (2009). CREATE Report Card 2009—Transitioning from care: Tracking progress. Sydney: CREATE.
Retrieved from https://create.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/05.-CREATE-Report-Card_Transitioning-From-
Care-Tracking-Progress_November-2009.pdf
McFarlane, K. (2015). Care criminalisation: The involvement of children in out of home care in the NSW criminal justice
system (Doctoral dissertation, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia). Retrieved from
https://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/fapi/datastream/unsworks:38185/SOURCE02?view=true
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