Relationships between parental mental illness and/or offending and offspring contact with the police in childhood: Findings from a longitudinal record‐linkage study

Abstract

Background: Parental offending and mental illness are associated with an increased risk of criminal behaviour in offspring during adolescence and adulthood, but the impact of such problems on younger children, including children's experiences of victimisation, is less well known. Aim: To investigate the associations between parental offending and mental illness recorded prior to their offspring's age of 5 years and their offspring's contact with police as a 'person of interest', 'victim' or 'witness' between ages 5 and 13 years. Methods: Our sample consisted of 72,771 children and their parents drawn from the New South Wales Child Development