‘We Don't do Measure and Quotes’: How Agency Responses Criminalise and Endanger the Safety of Children Missing in Care in New South Wales, Australia
| Author | KATH McFARLANE,EMMA COLVIN,ANDREW McGRATH,ALISON GERARD |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12253 |
The Howard Journal Vol57 No 2. June 2018 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12253
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 231–249
‘We Don’t do Measure and Quotes’:
How Agency Responses Criminalise
and Endanger the Safety of Children
Missing in Care in New South Wales,
Australia
EMMA COLVIN , KATH McFARLANE, ALISON GERARD
and ANDREW McGRATH
Emma Colvin is Lecturer; Kath McFarlane is Senior Lecturer; Alison Gerard
is Associate Professor, Centre for Law and Justice, Charles Sturt University,
Bathurst, NSW, Australia; Andrew McGrath is Senior Lecturer, School of
Psychology, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, NSW, Australia
Abstract: This article presentsqualitative data from interviews with 46 welfare and justice
professionals to examine the criminalisation of children who go missing within the Out-Of-
Home-Care (OOHC) residential environment. Participants had specific experience with
children living in residential facilities, either through the directprovision of care services,
the development of OOHC policy initiatives or through their role as law enforcement,
legal or justice personnel. The research found that agency practices, which were designed
to protect children, actually serve to conflate going missing with criminality, accelerating
children’s involvement in the justice system and ultimately endangering children’s safety.
Keywords: child endangerment; child sex exploitation; criminalisation; miss-
ing children; Out-Of-Home-Care (OOHC); residential care
The intersection of the Out-Of-Home-Care (OOHC) and criminal justice
systems (CJS) has been recognised internationally (Howard League 2016;
Laming 2016; Stanley 2017; Turpel-Lafond 2009). In Australia, children
with OOHC experience are disproportionately likely to be arrested, re-
manded in custody and jailed, compared with children without care expe-
rience (McFarlane 2017; Richards and Renshaw 2013). One of Australia’s
largest legal services, Victoria Legal Aid (2017), found children in OOHC
were almost twice as likely as children who remained with their families to
be charged with criminal offences.
While there remains a dearth of scholarly research (Taylor 2006), par-
ticularly in Australia (Cashmore and Ainsworth 2004), of the factors that
lead children in OOHC to enter the CJS, multiple explanations have been
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2018 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol57 No 2. June 2018
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 231–249
posited for this intersection: past victimisation; multiple placement shifts in
OOHC; criminogenic residential environments; a lack of emotional, finan-
cial or socio-cultural supports provided to those leaving care; and adverse
treatment by criminal justice agencies (McFarlane 2017; Stanley 2017).
In particular,residential care has been identified nationally as a driver in
the care-crime intersection (McFarlane 2017; Mendes, Baidawi and Snow
2014). Internationally,the readiness of care staff to call police for children’s
minor infractions has been identified as a key element in the criminalisation
process (Hayden 2010; Laming 2016; Paul 2008; Shaw 2017; Staines 2015;
Taylor 2006). In response, some jurisdictions, such as England and Wales,
have introduced a succession of targeted government and agency interven-
tions primarily focused on reducing the reliance by residential staff on po-
lice, to manage children’s behaviour (Laming 2016; Narey 2016). Recently,
this approach has been criticised for its exclusion of systemic, criminalising
agency practices that also negatively affect children in OOHC (Day 2017;
Staines 2015). This article addresses this deficit by exploring the criminali-
sation of children who go missing in care. As Gwinner (2017) has identified,
this is a neglected area of research that has important implications for both
policing and child welfare policy and practice.
Drawing on interviews with both senior and general duty police offi-
cers, caseworkers and managers, policy officers, juvenile justice staff and
lawyers in New South Wales (NSW) this article analyses the responses of
agencies directly involved in the care and protection of children in resi-
dential facilities towards children who go missing in care. First, we discuss
what happens when children go missing. Next, we propose a typology to
describe the way in which agencies unconsciously group missing children
into categories, and treat them differently accordingly. We then consider
the impact on police work posed by missing children and assess the rela-
tionships between police and residential staff. Finally,we discuss the impact
of agency responses on children themselves in light of growing interna-
tional recognition of their vulnerability to recruitment into criminal activity
and child sexual exploitation (CSE). We argue that the agency practices
and attitudes identified in this study increase the likelihood of children’s
entanglement with the CJS and endanger their safety.
Background
In NSW, children are removed from the custody of their parents pur-
suant to the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998
NSW (the Act) and placed in OOHC, to live with relatives, paid carers in
family-like situations or in residential facilities with paid staff. Nationally,
over 46,500 children are in OOHC, approximately 5.5% of whom live
in residential facilities (Child Family Community Australia (CFCA) 2016).
Approximately 17,000 children live in OOHC in NSW (Child Family Com-
munity Australia (CFCA) 2016), representing less than 1% of the NSW
child population (Department of Community Services, Australia (DOCS)
2007). One in ten children involved with the CJS in NSW have been in
OOHC (Ringland, Weatherburn and Poynton 2015).
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