Polarisation of adolescent offending trajectories during the youth crime decline: A multi-cohort analysis of justice-involved adolescents in Australia

Despite growing research on the youth crime decline, there has been limited analysis of how these trends have influenced offending trajectories and patterns of justice system contact in recent birth cohorts. This study aimed to examine changes in offending trajectories and youth justice system contact among Australian adolescents with a proven offence aged 10 to 16 years across 12 consecutive birth cohorts (1995 to 2006), in Queensland, Australia. Findings indicate that the number of adolescents with a proven offence decreased by 44%, and the number sentenced to a supervised order decreased by 29%. Within recent birth cohorts of justice-involved adolescents, there were significant increases in high frequency and violent offending, and in days spent in custody. Latent class growth analysis was used to identify offending trajectories. Multinomial logistic regression indicated that recent cohorts of justice-involved adolescents were significantly more likely to display moderate or chronic offending trajectories, than low-level offending.