FACTS AND FIGURES

• During childhood, some young people will have an encounter with the criminal justice system. Fortunately, most episodes of juvenile offending behaviour are relatively minor and transient in nature, confined to one-off events.

• Risk factors for involvement in juvenile crime include family factors, intelligence and school performance, truancy, the influence of delinquent peers, poverty and unemployment, and substance misuse. Family factors can include a lack of parental supervision, parental rejection, lack of parental involvement with the child, and the inconsistent application of discipline. Other social environment risk factors include low family socioeconomic status, parental and sibling criminality, child abuse and neglect, and youth homelessness.

• Figures released in 2007 showed that 57 males aged between 15 and 19 committed homicides in 2005-06, compared with just 22 in the previous year.

• Research showed that almost all juvenile detainees had used alcohol (97%) and cannabis (94%), while half had used amphetamines (50%) and one in three had used ecstasy at some stage in their lives. Cannabis was the drug most commonly used on a regular basis by young people in the six months prior to their detention (63%), followed by alcohol (46%) and amphetamines (20%). Nearly one in three juvenile offenders were regular poly-substance users in the six months prior to detention.

• A study of 371 juveniles incarcerated in Australian detention centres found that violent abuse was most frequently reported (36%) followed by emotional abuse (27%) and neglect (18%). When combined, almost half the young people (46%) reported experiencing at least one of these types of abuse in their lifetime. When neglect or abuse did occur, it was most likely to be by a parent or guardian, followed by a sibling. The experiences of neglect and abuse also appeared to be linked to both drug use and crime. Juveniles reporting regular violent or property offending were more likely to report a history of neglect and abuse, as were juveniles reporting high frequency substance use in the six months prior to detention.

• The typical inmate has a clinical disorder, comes from a broken home, has experienced some form of abuse or neglect and has been a bully. The average age for leaving school was 14, with 25% departing in year 8 and 33% in year 9. More than 80 per cent had not attended school in the six months before they were incarcerated. More than 90% of the 223 boys surveyed in 2003 had been suspended from school and all 19 girls had been suspended.

• In Australia during 2005-06, 44% of young people, including over 50% of those aged 10-13 years of age, had a period of detention (usually pre-sentence detention) in their first supervision. Over 40% of young people who began their first ever supervision when aged 12 years had completed at least four supervision periods by the time they were 18, compared with less than 10% for those whose initial supervision began when they were 15 years old.

• During 2005-06 the total number of young people under juvenile justice supervision in Australia was 13,254, including 11,265 aged 10-17 years (the remainder were aged 18 years and over).

• Around four per 1,000 young people aged 10-17 years were under community-based supervision, and around two per 1,000 had detention-based supervision at some time during the year.

• Almost 65% of young people under supervision were aged 16 years or older with less than 10% aged 13 or younger.

• Over 60% of young people were at least 15 years old when they had their first ever juvenile justice supervision experience.

• During 2005-06, there was an average of 5,185 young people in community-based juvenile justice supervision each day (16% were female and 84% were male) and 816 young people in detention-based juvenile justice supervision (8% were female and 92% were male).

• Indigenous young people make up 38% of those under juvenile justice supervision. About 44 out of 1,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people aged 10-17 years were under juvenile justice supervision during 2005-06 compared with about three out of 1,000 non-Indigenous young people.

• Persons aged 15 to 19 years are more likely to be processed by police for the commission of a crime than any other population group. In 2004-05 the offending rate for persons aged 15 to 19 years was four times the offender rate for the remainder of the population (5,841 and 1,417 per 100,000 relevant persons respectively).

• The offender rate among juveniles declined from 4,092 per 100,000 juveniles in 1995-96 to 3,081 in 2004-05.

• Juvenile rates of offending are generally double the rates for adults.

• Juvenile offender rates were similar in 1995-96 and 2004-05 for the offences of homicide and robbery. Rates for assault have increased by 14%. Juvenile offender rates have decreased by 50% for other theft and 25% for MVT and UEWI.

• In 2004-05, the Indigenous community corrections rate was ten times higher than the rate for non-Indigenous offenders, at 2,799 compared with 264 per 100,000 relevant population.

• The incarceration rate for Indigenous juveniles was 312 per 100,000, 23 times higher than the rate for non-Indigenous juveniles (14 per 100,000).

• There has been a 33% decline in the Indigenous juvenile imprisonment rate since the high of 468 per 100,000 recorded in March 1997.