Position Paper 2023

Transdisciplinary Research for Youth Justice – Position Paper 2023 21 from education, and advocating for more inclusive services to prevent the criminalisation of neurodisability. We also recognise the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and cumulative risk, and the criminalisation of children from disrupted home environments and care backgrounds. Charlie describes an abusive home environment, where his brother physically assaults him, and his mother uses hitting as a punishment. He also describes abuse from his stepfather but is not specific about the nature of this. The Kaiser ACEs scale recognises 10 ACEs (Felitti et al., 1998) and experiencing any one of these ACEs places a child at risk of long-term negative psychological and behavioural outcomes including mental health problems, risk- taking behaviours, and substance abuse. These effects can be compounded when multiple ACEs are experienced (Petruccelli et al., 2019). People in contact with the criminal justice system report far higher levels of ACEs than the general population (Andrews & Bonta, 2016), indicative of the pervasive impact of childhood adversity in pathways to incarceration. The reasons for this are complex, and beyond the scope of this case study response, but there is evidence that trauma-informed services and interventions could be beneficial for preventing justice system contact (Messina & Schepps, 2021). It is also plausible that Charlie may have sustained a paediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) from this abuse, and possibly multiple TBIs. Children who sustain TBIs in disrupted or chaotic home environments have poorer long-term academic and behavioural outcomes (Durber et al., 2017), likely due to inaccessibility of services and lack of appropriate intervention in education for children without familial resources. It is not clear in Charlie’s case study whether he was identified as having Special Educational Needs in school and whether he received any specialist help and support, but even if a plan was in place it is unlikely to be tailored to TBI due to chronic under-recognition in education systems (Nagale et al., 2019). TBI could be a key contributing factor to Charlie’s vulnerability to substance abuse (Canella, McGary, & Ramirez, 2019).