Doolan, I., Najman, J. M., Mills, R., Cherney, A., & Strathearn, L. (2013). Does child abuse and neglect explain the overrepresentation of aboriginal and Torres Strait islander young people in youth detention? Findings from a birth cohort study. Child Abuse & Neglect: The International Journal, 37(5), 303-309.
Youth of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent are vastly overrepresented in the youth criminal justice system in Australia. This quantitative study seeks to identify factors that predict involvement with the Australian criminal justice system for youth of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent.
A self-report survey was administered to pregnant mothers at an Australian hospital that included questions regarding socioeconomic status, race, use of tobacco and alcohol. Incidences of child maltreatment and contact with the youth justice system were obtained through records of Queensland state child protection agency and the Department of Families, Youth and Community Care in September 2000. The present study linked the survey data with the Queensland state child protection agency to obtain a final sample of 7214 mother-child dyads. This study used multivariate logistic regression to investigate whether child maltreatment, socioeconomic status, and race predicted future incarceration rates.
The results showed that after adjusted for substantiated maltreatment, maternal age, marital status, family income, heavy drug use, and previous problems with the law, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth were about 2.48 times more likely to have a youth justice history than youth of non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent.
The main strength of this study is that it is based on longitudinal data. However, the authors acknowledged a possible confounding cohort effect. Potential weaknesses include the use of a non-refereed self-reported questionnaire to collect data from the pregnant mothers.