Impact of trauma and placement in residential or congregate care on the criminalisation of children in England/Wales and Australia

Children in residential care have the most complex needs of all children growing up in Out-of-Home care (OOHC), due to complex trauma from pre-care experiences of abuse and neglect, inadequate therapeutic supports while in care and significant placement instability. Some argue that residential care settings are intrinsically criminogenic, as evidenced by significant over-representation of this cohort in youth justice. However, little is known about how children’s experiences of trauma, including removal from family and placement in OOHC, is viewed by lawyers and decision-makers in criminal cases involving children in care. Criminal justice decisions can have long-term ramifications for children in care and custodial sentencing can often be a precursor to ongoing incarceration into adulthood. This qualitative, cross-national study explored the impacts of trauma and placement in residential or congregate care on the criminalisation of children in England/Wales and Australia. In-depth interviews were conducted with 28 legal, youth justice and judicial stakeholders in England, Wales (UK), New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria (Australia). While there are considerable differences in the operation of child protection and youth justice systems between these jurisdictions, thematic analysis using NVivo14 identified. confirmed ongoing systemic factors associated with criminalisation identified in previous literature persists despite attempts to address these through policy and practice reforms. These factors include an absence of therapeutic supports, unstable and unsafe residential care placements, over-reliance on police to respond to minor incidents, increasingly punitive police responses lacking awareness of the impacts of childhood trauma and inappropriate use of custody as an ‘alternative’ placement. These findings suggest the similar systemic processes across these jurisdictions are likely to reflect deeply entrenched ideologies about ‘care’ and ‘protection’ that function to criminalise trauma. The implications of these systemic factors when children are exposed to formal criminal justice decision-making are considered.