Objectives: To estimate overall and cause specific standardised mortality ratios in young offenders.
Design: Comparison of mortality data in cohort of young offenders.
Settings: State of Victoria, Australia.
Subjects: Cohort of young offenders aged 10-20 years with a first custodial sentence from 1 January 1988 to 31 December 1999.
Main outcome measures: Deaths ascertained by matching with the national death index, a database containing records of all deaths in Australia since 1980. Death rates in the reference Victorian population used to calculate standardised mortality ratios.
Results: The offender cohort comprised 2621 men and 228 women with 11 333 person years of observation. The median age of first detention was 17.9 years for men and 18.4 years for women. Median follow up was 3.3 years for men and 1.4 years for women. Overall standardised mortality ratio adjusted for age (expressed as a ratio) was 9.4 (95% confidence interval 7.4 to 11.9) for men and 41.3 (20.2 to 84.7) for women. Cause specific standardised mortality ratios for men were 25.7 (17.9 to 36.9) for drug related causes, 9.2 (5.8 to 15) for suicide, and 5.7 (3.6 to 9.2) for non-intentional injury. A quarter of drug related deaths in men aged 15-19 years were in offenders.
Conclusions: Social policies for young offenders should address both the prevalent drug and mental health problems as well the high levels of social disadvantage.