Gender Differences in the Maltreatment-Youth Offending Relationship: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Maltreated and child welfare-involved youth are over-represented in juvenile justice systems. These youth are at a greater risk of serious offending and justice system entrenchment relative to their non-maltreated peers. Understanding gender differences in the pathways to justice involvement and the nature of offending among maltreated children is critical for informing policy and practice. Yet, this body of evidence is fragmented. This scoping review identified and narratively synthesized evidence from studies reporting on gender differences in the individual characteristics, maltreatment experiences, child protection involvement and offending profiles of maltreated youth who offend. A comprehensive search of four databases generated 11,568 publications, from which 180 met the review’s inclusion criteria. These primary studies included participants aged 8–21 years with a history of childhood maltreatment and youth offending and reported at least one gendered analysis. Some consistent findings were reported across studies. A greater level of child welfare involvement and maltreatment exposure (particularly sexual abuse and multi-type maltreatment) was found for justice involved girls, relative to boys. Maltreated and child welfare-involved boys appear more likely to offend than girls, but findings about how gender moderates the maltreatment-offending relationship were inconsistent. Child welfare systems involvement (particularly foster care and residential care) appeared to be an important moderator for girls, and school performance mediated outcomes for boys. Across this body of evidence, few studies accounted for under-reporting of abuse and neglect when using youth self-report measures of maltreatment. Future research is needed which explicitly explores how gender moderates the maltreatment-offending relationship.

An Empirical Test of Dual System Pathways

“…The relationship between gender and empirically derived pathways and juvenile justice experiences aligns with previous literature (Baidawi et al, 2021; Baglivio et al, 2015; Herz, et al, 2019b; Herz et al, 2021b; Kolivoski et al, 2014; Ryan et al, 2013). Not only were female youth twice as likely as male youth to be in the pathway with the deepest child welfare involvement (H 3 CW-AD), but they were also more likely to have assault-related charges and be placed in an out-of-home setting by the delinquency court.…”

“…Table 6 displays the descriptive findings for gender and race and ethnicity across the empirically derived pathways. Like previous research, a higher proportion of female and Black youth fell into pathways with higher levels of child welfare involvement (Baidawi et al, 2021; Halemba & Siegel, 2011; Herz, et al, 2019b; Herz et al, 2021b; Kolivoski, 2022). Female youth were twice as likely to have the highest level of child welfare involvement (H 3 CW-AD) compared to the LCW-CD pathway (38.5% vs. 19.6%, respectively), and the rates for Black youth increased in all three high child welfare involvement clusters relative to the low child welfare involvement pathways.…”

“…Increasingly, it appears that gender and race plays a particularly important role in dual system experiences, but it has not been fully explored (Baidawi et al, 2021; Herz, et al, 2019b, 2021b; Kolivoski, 2022). It is particularly important to consider the intersectionality of identity, which was beyond the scope of the current study.…”

From Childhood System Contact to Adult Criminal Conviction: Investigating Intersectional Inequalities using Queensland Administrative Data

“…Since the influence of factors such as sex and race/ethnicity cannot be disentangled, if we explore these facets independently, we risk masking important intragroup differences (Lorenz & Hayes, 2020). An emerging body of research has demonstrated the value of exploring intersectional distinctions in offending patterns (Broidy et al, 2015;Bell, 2013), experiences of child maltreatment (Jones et al, 2021), relationships between child maltreatment and youth offending (Baidawi et al, 2021;Goodkind et al, 2013;Kolivoski, 2022), and the relationship between childhood experiences and adult violent or antisocial behaviour (Augustyn & Jackson, 2020;Jones et al, 2021). However, this area of research is still in its infancy, and there is much still to be learned, not least how best to identify and measure such intersectional effects.…”

Childhood adversity, emergent psychopathology, and adolescent-to-parent violence: Process mining trajectories from police and health service administrative data

“…In addition, the utility of this data is improved when linked across multiple agencies (37,38). Even though a recent increase has been seen in the number of multidisciplinary studies adopting this approach to explore childhood trajectories for juvenile offenders, much of this work to date has involved the use of child protective services and juvenile justice data (39,40).…”