Care to Custody: Exploring Factors Associated with Crossover Youth in an Australian Youth Justice Cohort

Youth who experience maltreatment and also engage in criminal behaviours commence offending at a younger age, commit a higher volume of crimes, and commit more serious crimes, than youth who do not experience maltreatment. The potential moderating factors behind this care-to-custody phenomenon are unclear. This thesis therefore explored the association between child protection history and a number of psychological phenomena and demographic variables in a sample of justice-involved youth. It further explored whether these variables are associated with violent or chronic offending histories, and whether having a child protection history moderates any relationship between the examined variables and offending behaviours.