A University of the Sunshine Coast study has found most young people charged with assaulting police had experienced childhood abuse, poverty, unstable housing and institutional failures.
The research, to be published in the Australian Journal of Social Issues, analysed court findings and coroner reports of all Australian cases between 2010 and 2023– 40 in total – where a person aged 12–24 was found guilty of assaulting a police officer.
Lead researcher and Social Work academic, Dr Dimitra Lattas said the study sought to better understand the underlying factors contributing to such violence and paved the way for more effective policies and practices that protected both police officers and vulnerable youth.
“This study explores youth assaults on police using a novel perspective that reframes violent behaviour as a functional survival response to perceived threats and power imbalances,” she said.
In the court transcripts, the young people characterised their home lives as ‘unsettled’, ‘disrupted’, and ‘traumatising’, with prolific exposure to violence, conflict, abuse and lack of safety.
“We found they had substantial disempowerment across their lives, with disrupted attachments, childhood maltreatment, institutional mistrust and social disadvantage,” Dr Lattas said.
“Additionally, the sample had high rates of alcohol and drug misuse; this included being substance-affected at the time of the police assault and wider addiction issues.”
The findings suggest that their violent behaviour predominantly functioned as an attempt to reclaim a sense of control and power in situations when they felt trapped, unsafe or disempowered.
“It is essential to disrupt narratives that these encounters are purely an individual's act of aggression and consider the role structural factors play,” Dr Lattas said.
“We can better understand violent behaviour not as senseless, but as a patterned, meaningful response to a life shaped by powerlessness and threat,” she said. “It may operate as a learned coping strategy used to survive adversity and danger.”
The multidisciplinary research team included UniSC policing researcher Dr Kelly Hine, Senior Lecturer in Counselling Catherine Creamer, Associate Professor of Law Kelley Burton and PhD candidate Katelyn Devenport-Klunder.
The researchers said by applying a ‘Power Threat Meaning Framework’ that reframed violence as a functional response to perceived threats, the study offered a way to support more effective, trauma-informed responses in policing and youth justice.
“This approach provides practical insights for policing strategies, youth justice policies and community interventions,” said Dr Hine, whose research specialises in the front-line policing and decision-making especially in situations that are rapidly unfolding and typically volatile.
“With police increasingly being used to manage a cohort with complex mental health and trauma needs, equipping officers with knowledge about developmental trauma could help prevent volatile encounters and improve outcomes for both police and young people ," she said.
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