From Care to Custody: Trajectories of Children in Post-War New Zealand
| DOI | 10.1177/1473225416669145 |
| Author | Elizabeth Stanley |
| Published date | 01 April 2017 |
| Date | 01 April 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1473225416669145
Youth Justice
2017, Vol. 17(1) 57 –72
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1473225416669145
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From Care to Custody: Trajectories
of Children in Post-War New
Zealand
Elizabeth Stanley
Abstract
This article considers the trajectory of children from state care to imprisonment in relation to 105 New
Zealanders who spent time in residential care between the 1950s and 1990s. Following previous research,
the article demonstrates how children in state care are far more likely to progress into prisons as a result of
maltreatment, multiple care placements, damaging residential cultures, social disadvantages and psychological
harms, as well as differential treatment in the criminal justice system. This New Zealand research also
shows how the interconnected and long-standing processes of victimization and criminalization increase the
likelihood of a child transitioning from care to custody.
Keywords
children, criminalization, imprisonment, offending, state care, victimization
Introduction
Significant public attention has recently focussed on the historical experiences of
children1 moved from their families into residential care. Numerous commissions and
inquiries have detailed the long-term damaging consequences of childhoods within abu-
sive or damaging institutions. They have also recorded the impacts of marginalization and
stigma that persistently encompass care leavers’ lives. One long-term repercussion relates
to how many care leavers go on to face convictions and imprisonment. As Tutt (1974)
remarked over 40 years ago, ‘the paradoxical situation has arisen that the more residential
treatment a child gets because [they are] deprived or delinquent, the more deprived or
delinquent [they are] likely to become’ (p. 48).
Drawing upon extensive research with 105 individuals who spent time in residential
care in New Zealand, this article explores the transition of children from care to custody.
Corresponding author:
Elizabeth Stanley, Institute of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140,
New Zealand.
Email: elizabeth.stanley@vuw.ac.nz
669145YJJ0010.1177/1473225416669145Youth JusticeStanley
research-article2016
Article
58 Youth Justice 17(1)
In line with previous research, it demonstrates how children in state care are far more
likely to progress into custody as a result of maltreatment, multiple care placements, dam-
aging institutional cultures, social disadvantages and psychological harms, as well as dif-
ferential treatment in the criminal justice system. This New Zealand research also shows
how two interconnected and sustaining processes – of victimization and criminalization
– increase the likelihood of a child transitioning from care to custody.
Care Leavers and Custody
Most children leaving care do not have any involvement with criminal justice agencies.
Under intense official scrutiny, many care leavers lead law-abiding lives. Yet, studies
repeatedly show a strong connection between youth/adult incarceration and histories of
state care (Children, Schools and Families Committee, 2009; McAra and McVie, 2010;
Taylor, 2006). In the United States, the longitudinal study by Collins et al. (2001) found
that about a quarter of 1550 boys had been sentenced to adult corrections within 7.5 years
of release from residential care. They also reported no difference in outcomes between
boys who had been admitted to residences for care and protection and those placed for
offending reasons. In the United Kingdom, 27 per cent of 1052 males and 56 per cent of
40 females held in British young offender institutions during 2011 were recorded to have
previously spent time in local authority care (Summerfield, 2011). In Australia, Mendes
and Baidawi (2012) estimated that one-third to a half of ‘youth prisoners’ had been in
care. Another study, in New South Wales, reported that 28 per cent males and 39 per cent
females in detention had ‘a history of out-of-home care’ (McFarlane, 2010: 345).
In a New Zealand context, the Ministry of Social Development has recently followed
the lives of the 58,091 people born in 1989 (MSD, 2010: 9). This retrospective study
identified that, by the age of 20 years, 1.2 per cent (672) of the 1989 cohort had been
imprisoned, and a high share of those imprisoned (83%/558) had a previous ‘Child, Youth
and Family’ (CYF) record. Of this 558, 13 per cent (n = 84) had been a care and protection
‘client’, 21 per cent (n = 141) youth justice ‘client’ and 50 per cent (n = 333) had previously
crossed over care and protection and youth justice services. The latter group fared badly:
compared to ‘those … without a CYF record’, they were ‘15 times more likely to get a
Corrections’ record by the age of 19/20, and 107 times more likely to be imprisoned under
20’ (MSD, 2010: 12).
Explanations
Studies from the United Kingdom, United States and Australia have provided multiple
explanations for these transitions into criminal justice processing and subsequent custody.
Foremost among them is that children caught up in the criminal justice system are more
likely to have histories of maltreatment, as those moved into state care often do (Stewart
et al., 2002). Certain factors associated with maltreatment appear influential. In New
South Wales, Indig et al. (2011) noted that girls in criminal justice custody were more
likely to have backgrounds of abuse or neglect than boys. Furthermore, in Queensland,
Stewart et al. (2008) demonstrated that children who endured ‘chronic’ victimization were
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