Children Placed in Out-of-Home Care: Risk Factors for Involvement With the Juvenile Justice System

Abstract

In previous research, child maltreatment has been associated with several negative outcomes, including delinquency. This study uses administrative data to examine risk factors, including the severity and chronicity of maltreatment, for juvenile justice involvement among children, ages 7 to 17, who were placed in out-of-home care in Florida (N = 13,212). The results of multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that among specific types of maltreatment, sexual abuse was associated with the risk of faster placement only in a detention center. Additionally, findings from this study suggest that maltreatment chronicity but not maltreatment severity increases the chances of earlier involvement with the juvenile justice system among children who were placed in an out-of-home care. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Child maltreatment and criminal convictions in youth: The role of gender, ethnicity and placement experiences in an Australian population

“…Others have argued that it is not placement in care per se that results in offending behavior, but that other placement characteristics, such as the age at time of first placement or the placement duration or stability, exacerbate risk (Kolivoski, Shook, Goodkind, & Kim, 2014;Ryan & Testa, 2005;Yampolskaya, Armstrong, & McNeish, 2011). There is mixed evidence regarding the effects of placement duration.…”

The Impact of Psychiatric Practice Guidelines on Medication Costs and Youth Aggression in a Juvenile Justice Residential Treatment Program

“…Stakeholders have scrutinized child welfare system psychotropic prescribing practices. Juvenile justice-involved youths share many of the same risk factors as youths in foster care, including exposure to trauma, and large percentages of youths in the juvenile justice system have concurrent or previous child welfare system involvement (35)(36)(37)(38)(39). Psychotropic prescribing information for youths in juvenile justice placements is not readily available, as it is for youths in foster care.…”

A Comparative Analysis of the Risk Profiles of Australian Young Offenders From Rural and Urban Communities

“…There is also consistent evidence to support the proposition that a history of child maltreatment and neglect are strong predictors of juvenile delinquent behaviour and subsequent contact with the justice system (e.g., Corrado, Kuehn, & Margaritescu, 2014;Malvaso et al, 2017;Vidal et al, 2017). For example, one study (conducted in Florida, USA), found that each maltreatment report increased the risk of going into a detention centre by 15% (Yampolskaya, Armstrong, & McNeish, 2011).…”