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Chronic offenders and 'poly-users' : young people's use of social infrastructure

Abstract

It has been argued that service systems such as health, education and justice may be dealing with people who are more frequent users of services than on average. While we know that there are groups of young people who might be considered 'chronic offenders', we have limited empirical information on whether they are also poly-users of social services. This paper provides a brief overview on who are chronic offenders, what groups may be poly users, and what groups may have little to no access to resources at all. The paper argues that if our poly-users are also our chronic offenders then the clear implication is that our current armory of social services is not as effective as we are entitled to expect. After discussing this complex issue, the paper puts forward three research proposals to investigate the issue, only two of which are regarded as viable.