Using data from the child protection and youth justice supervision linked data collection, this report shows that children and young people who have been maltreated are at greater risk of engaging in criminal activity and of entering the youth justice system. 

The report presents information on young people under youth justice supervision during 2022–23 who had an interaction with the child protection system in the 10 years from 1 July 2013 and it is the first to incorporate 10 years of data. 

Key findings

• About one half of young people in community-based supervision (45%) and detention (50%) were the subject of a substantiated notification for abuse or neglect.
• The younger a person was when they first entered youth justice supervision, the more likely they were to have had an interaction with the child protection system.
• About 3 in 4 (76%) First Nations young people under youth justice supervision had an interaction with child protection services in the last 10 years.
• 65% of those under youth justice supervision interacted with the child protection system in the last 10 years.
• 29% of those under youth justice supervision interacted with the child protection system within the same year.
• About 1 in 4 young people under youth justice supervision had at least one placement in out-of-home care at some point in the last 10 years; of these, about two-thirds had at least one placement in residential care.