Link between mental health problems and police contact starts from childhood

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-06-23 01:00

Australia; NSW; VIC; QLD; SA

Michał Parzuchowski

Children identified as having emotional or behavioural problems at the start of their schooling life are already at a higher risk of coming into contact with police during childhood. Australian researchers looked at development data from close to 80,000 children who began school in 2009, and followed them until they turned 13. Those who had been identified as having behavioural or emotional problems when they began school were twice as likely to have come into contact with police by age 13 than the rest of the student cohort. The most common police contact was as a survivor of crime, while the link between early mental health problems and police contact was strongest for children who became a person of interest in a criminal investigation.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The University of New South Wales, The University of Adelaide, Griffith University, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Monash University

Funder: This study was funded by grant LP110100150 from the Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project (with the New SouthWales [NSW] Ministry of Health, NSW Department of Education, and the NSW Department of Communities and Justice as formal linkage partners); grant DP170101403 from the ARC Discovery Project; grant FT170100294 from the ARC Future Fellowship; project grants 1058652, 1148055, and 1133833 from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia (with the NSW Department of Communities and Justice representing the project partners); grants 104090 and 162302 from the Australian Rotary Health Mental Health for Young Australians (Dr Laurens, Ms Harris, and Dr Dean); and investigator grant APP1175408 from NHMRC of Australia (Dr Dean and Ms Harris). The New SouthWales Child Development Study overall uses population data owned by the NSW Department of Education; NSW Education Standards Authority; NSW Department of Communities and Justice; NSW Ministry of Health; NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages; the Australian Coordinating Registry (on behalf of Australian Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages; Australian Coroners; and the National Coronial Information System); the Australian Bureau of Statistics; the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research; and NSW Police Force. This research used data from the Australian Early Development Census, which is funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment and Training.

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