Home > Crossover Youth
Research Name : Crossover Youth: Understanding youth justice inequalities for children in the care system.
Researchers : Dr Anna Leyland, Dr Calum Webb, Prof. Nathan Hughes and Prof. Matthew Bennett
Research Year : 2023-2024
Supporters : ADR UK, Office for National Statistics, Department for Education, Ministry of Justice
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Our ADR UK funded research reveals for the first time the extent of inequality in justice system outcomes for children involved in the care system in England. We have shared these findings through a suite of reports, presentations, and articles, as well as an animation and an interactive data dashboard. Read on to find out more.
In 2021 ADR UK funded Dr Anna Leyland (ADR UK Research Fellows: Ministry of Justice and the Department for Education linked datasets fellowships – ADR UK) to carry out world-leading research on a newly linked dataset, made up of several government datasets linked together. This novel data allows approved researchers to discover for the first-time insights into the criminal justice outcomes for children in the care system in England. Anna worked alongside researchers at the University of Sheffield to apply advanced analyses to better understand issues of major public importance.
The full report of this research is currently being reviewed by journal editors. The findings are summarised in the animation below. A presentation of this research was given to partners of Research In Practice and a recording of this is available to watch Child social care involvement and justice systems contact | Research in Practice (need to check this is open to all users). A slide-pack of the research findings is available to view here.
Tip: If you are having trouble reading, you can view the slideshow in full screen, or you can download the pdf here.
Social work teams can intervene differently with families depending on many factors, including the level of need of the family. The level of social work intervention is one of many aspects of a child’s care system experience that can differ between children. Children in the care system have also often faced more challenge and adversity than most other children.
Read more about how social work teams can intervene with families and how this can be tracked in administrative data.
To better understand whether the social work intervention was having a causal effect on criminal justice system outcomes for care system involved youth, we looked at only the children where the child welfare service intervention was not due in any way due to the child’s prior formal contact with the criminal justice system. We found that most children in the care system have their social work intervention before they have a formal caution or conviction. The results showed that children in the care system were more likely to have a caution or conviction by early adulthood.
This evidence strengthens the idea that aspects of the social work intervention may be increasing the risk of criminal cautions and convictions, particularly for children who are looked after. Read more about how social work interventions may play a causal role in children’s justice outcomes. or read the full report here.
Read more about custodial outcomes for children in the care system on the ADR UK website.
Data-Insight-Children-involved-with-child-welfare-services-likelihood-custodial-sentence.pdf
Children in the care system in some local authorities are three times more likely to have a caution or conviction than children in other local authorities.
For all Local Authorities in England, the caution and conviction rate for children in the care system is higher than children outside of the care system.
This means that although some Local Authorities are doing better than other Local Authorities, the inequity for children in the care system exists in every Local Authority of England. The full report of this research is currently being reviewed by journal editors.
Find out how your Local Authority is performing by using CHILD-REN’s interactive Data Dashboard. Coming March 2025!
The full report of this research is currently being reviewed by journal editors.
CHILD-REN aims to make a difference to children’s lives by sharing the novel and high-class research findings with the right people.
CHILD-REN has worked with the Centre for Justice Innovation and the Centre for International Research on Care, Labour, and Equalities (CIRCLE) to engage with practitioners and policy makers in the Criminal Justice and Family Justice systems, as well as young people who have had personal experiences of these systems. This work has resulted in the production of a practitioner recommendation document, coming soon March 2025.
CHILD-REN was pleased to present research findings to the Department for Education and the Ministry of Justice, and at the British Academy to a broad range of third sector and government researchers, policy makers, and practitioners. The research findings were presented to social work and youth justice practitioners through a partnership with Research in Practice: Intersecting inequalities: Child social care involvement and youth justice contact | Research in Practice.
Our research has been referenced by the Child of the North and the Centre for Young Lives Child of the North 2024 Campaign – N8 Research Partnership in their report An evidence-based plan for addressing childhood vulnerability, crime and justice.
See page 20 of the report to see how our research was used in this report.
We recognise the importance of high-quality rigorous research methods and the dissemination of research findings to grow and build the international evidence base in this important area. Two keyways in which CHILD-REN is upholding these principles has been through presentation at international conferences, Stockholm Criminology Symposium and at the European Congress on Psychology and through open and transparent research methods. The code used to analyse the linked government datasets and to create the dashboard is available at the CHILD-REN’s GitHub pages. Coming soon early 2025.
This work would not have been possible without the support of ADR UK, the Office for National Statistics, the Department for Education, and the Ministry of Justice. The research was the work of Dr Anna Leyland (MMU), Dr Calum Webb (University of Sheffield), Prof. Nathan Hughes (University of Sheffield), and Prof. Matthew Bennett (University of Birmingham) with support to create the animation from Dr Katie Ellis and Dan Williamson (University of Sheffield), and Inertia Creative.
Thanks to the Centre for Justice Innovation, Research in Practice, City of Doncaster Council and to the practitioners and care experienced young people who have given their time and support in creating impact from this research.
