Sentencing of care-experienced Young People webinar

Join CYCJ Associate Dr Claire Paterson-Young (ISII, University of Northampton) alongside colleagues Dr Tatiana Corrales (Monash University, AUS) and Dr Ian Warren (Deakin University, AUS) as they present preliminary findings from a cross-national research study exploring whether childhood trauma – particularly removal of the child, and their placement in out of home care – is a factor within sentencing disposition in Children’s Courts in England, Wales and Australia.

Covering a range of topics, including trauma-informed practice, the over-criminalisation of care-experienced children, diversion from prosecution, and the overrepresentation of ethnic minorities within both the care and justice systems, this research project provides a valuable new perspective on some of the pervasive issues in the way that care-experienced children are treated by justice systems.

Whilst there are considerable socio-legal differences between approaches to child protection and youth justice across these different jurisdictions, a number of overarching commonalities have emerged from the research, relating to the systemic factors that influence the criminalisation of children in care. These include:

• a residential care system characterised by instability and lack of safety
• the absence of therapeutic responses to children in care
• an over-reliance on police for minor incidents
• increasingly punitive responses from police that are not trauma-informed

The research also indicates that child protection systems across the different jurisdictions are unable to provide adequate/appropriate support to children with high and/or complex needs; this leads to an abdication of responsibility for the children in their care once these children enter the youth justice system.

CYCJ Practice Development Adviser Ross Gibson will also reflect on the way in which these preliminary research findings do and don’t mirror what we see at the intersection of youth justice and social care in Scotland.