Trajectories of Offending and Mental Health Service Use: Similarities and Differences by Gender and Indigenous Status in an Australian Birth Cohort

Abstract

Mental illness is firmly established as a risk factor for criminal legal system contact, particularly for women and Indigenous people. While patterns of criminal legal contact vary by gender and Indigenous status, we do not know how mental health contacts factor into these patterns. The aim of this research is to examine whether mental health characteristics and service contacts vary across patterns of criminal legal system contact defined by group-based trajectory modelling and to explore whether any such variation is consistent across gender and Indigenous status. Using linked administrative data from a 1990 Australian birth cohort (to age 23/24 years, N = 45,141), we estimate trajectories of criminal legal system contact and assess variation across groups defined by gender and Indigenous status. We then examine whether types of mental illness diagnoses and mental health service contacts varied across trajectory groups and whether this was consistent across gender and Indigenous status. Findings point to important differences in mental health system contact across offending trajectory groups. Differences are suggestive of variation in mental health system utilization at the intersection of gender and Indigenous statuses that are conditioned by patterns of criminal legal system contact. We conclude by outlining the implications of these patterns for life course theories of offending and for gender and culturally informed support and interventions directed towards system-involved individuals with mental health needs.