Are police cautions a soft option? Reoffending among juveniles cautioned or referred to court
| Author | Don Weatherburn,Jia J Wang |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865818794235 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Are police cautions a soft
option? Reoffending among
juveniles cautioned or
referred to court
Jia J Wang and Don Weatherburn
NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Australia
Abstract
During the 1990s, many jurisdictions introduced police cautions as an alternative to referral
to court for juveniles committing comparatively minor offences. The policy was motivated by
a concern that contact with the court system for such offenders might be criminogenic. In
recent years, however, elected officials have criticised police cautions as a ‘soft option’ and
this (in some jurisdictions at least) has led to a decline in their use. Past research has often
failed to ensure that the comparison group for a police caution consists of children referred
to court who could have received a police caution. The current study overcomes this prob-
lem and employs a rigorous set of procedures for minimising the risk of selection bias. Our
results indicate that cautioning young offenders who have committed comparatively minor
offences and who have not previously been referred to court results in a lower risk of
reoffending than referral to court. We conclude that restrictions on the use of cautions in
these circumstances could increase the risk of juvenile reoffending.
Keywords
Doubly robust estimation, juvenile, police caution, propensity score matching, recidivism,
referral to court
Date received: 28 March 2018; accepted: 23 July 2018
Introduction
During the 1990s and early 2000s a number of western countries introduced measures to
reduce the number of young people coming before the criminal courts. The UK
Corresponding author:
Don Weatherburn, NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Level 1, Henry Deane Building, 20 Lee Street,
Sydney 2000, Australia.
Email: don.weatherburn@justice.nsw.gov.au
Australian & New Zealand Journal of
Criminology
2019, Vol. 52(3) 334–347
!The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865818794235
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