Legal Rights Understanding and Misconceptions Among Justice Involved Youth in New Zealand

When police officers arrest, detain or question young people in New Zealand, they deliver the Child and Young Persons version of the Rights Caution. Previous research has shown that young people do not understand their legal rights. Research indicates there are a range of cognitive and developmental factors that are more common among justice involved youth which is likely impeding their legal rights understanding. The purpose of the current research was to examine how justice involved youth in New Zealand understand their legal rights when presented with a visual tool to support understanding. Three research questions were examined: 1) What do justice involved youth understand about their legal rights? 2) What misconceptions or gaps do they hold about their legal rights? 3) Do verbal intelligence (IQ) and age impact legal rights understanding and misconceptions? To address these questions, justice involved youth, aged 10 to 18 years, were recruited from community organisations and youth support services. Participants’ understanding was examined qualitatively using a combined directive qualitative content analysis (DCQA) and Summative Content Analysis (SCA) approach. Legal rights understanding was assessed using the New Zealand Rights Caution Competency Questionnaire (Fortune et al., n.d.), to identify specific aspects of the Youth Caution that participants struggled with. The results showed that legal rights understanding was low among justice involved youth, who had several gaps and misconceptions in their legal rights understanding. While verbal IQ was found to have a possible impact on understanding, it appeared age did not impact level of understanding. As justice involved youth had an incomplete understanding of their legal rights, these findings suggest that this population faces a number of challenges beyond how legal rights are delivered. Therefore, it is evident that further support should be provided to this population through legislative or policy change.