Health and offence histories of young offenders in Saskatoon, Canada

This paper examines the relationship between health and juvenile criminality in Saskatchewan, Canada. The data consist of anonymised demographic, health and juvenile offence information provided by Saskatchewan Social Service and Health agencies. They allow the examination of health and offence relationships among 315 offenders attaining the age of 17 years in 1987 or 1988. Two main research questions are explored: (1) the relationship between health and the criminal career patterns of the sample, and (2) the time course of the receipt of healthcare relative to times of offence to determine whether offending is associated with an increase of healthcare being sought. The findings indicate that there is little support for an association between any specific disease category and juvenile offending. Mental disorder is the health variable most consistently distinguishing offenders. Other variables suggest intriguing relationships that cannot be regarded as conclusive on the evidence presented here: for instance, perinatal disorders distinguish those whose offences are exclusively committed against the person. The data show clear differences between offenders and non‐offenders in the pattern of health contacts made according to age. A higher proportion of medical contacts made by non‐offenders are made before their eleventh birthday. The opposite is true of offenders. This could be interpreted as showing that parents and others respond to officially recorded offending by seeking medical accounts or mitigation of juvenile offending. However, much of the increase in health contacts by offenders occurs in the years before their official identification as offenders. This suggests that medical help is sought as children develop a pre‐delinquent lifestyle and also seek medical accounts of official delinquency once it has occurred. This is most true of those who start their official delinquency late.