Summary
This study builds on a previous project that examined the link between child maltreatment and juvenile offending. It followed all children born in 1983 in Queensland through any contact they had with the child protection system, and/or any juvenile justice matter that required the child to appear in court or be held in custody. The current study involved the addition of the 1984 birth cohort and formal police cautioning histories to the dataset. This report describes the key findings in relation to cautioning. The aim of this part of the research was to examine the relationship between cautioning and subsequent contact with the juvenile justice system. The results show that children who have been maltreated and cautioned are more likely to reoffend than those who have not been maltreated highlighting the importance of programs that target risk factors associated with maltreatment early in a child's life. This is particularly the case for young Indigenous children.