Understanding the factors underlying young people’s offending is essential for effective intervention. Although many risk factors for persistent offending have been proposed, methodological limitations of existing research prevent firm conclusions. Most studies have been conducted in North America and Europe, with little Australian work. We examined long term offending outcomes and associated risk factors among 197 young people in custody in Victoria. We calculated the prevalence of transition to the adult criminal justice system over 10 years and performed Cox proportional hazards regression models to identify associated factors. Most youth transitioned to the adult system. In multivariate analyses, only the number of offending and victimisation incidents and contact with homelessness services remained significantly associated with adult justice involvement. Given the overlap in risk factors between those with and without adult justice contact, it seems prudent to address these factors among all deep-end justice-involved youth, regardless of perceived risk of offending persistence.
Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abstract
- Executive summary
- Method
- Results
- Discussion
- Background
- Risk factors for the onset and persistence of offending among young people
- Current study
- Method
- Original study
- Current study
- Results
- Summary statistics
- Transition to the adult criminal justice system
- Discussion
- Overview of the research
- Synthesis of the main findings
- Strengths and limitations
- Implications
- Future directions
- Conclusion
- References
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