Childhood onset of delinquent behaviour and severe family problems, including child maltreatment and neglect, are associated with a variety of adverse outcomes in young adulthood [1–6]. These childhood problems are important risk factors for later delinquent behaviour and hamper psychological functioning [1, 3, 4, 7–17]. So far, childhood risk factors of adulthood problems have been studied either within delinquent populations [1–3, 9, 13, 18–21] or in populations of young adults who experienced maltreatment and out-of-home placements in their childhood [3, 22]. These studies focused predominantly on the severity, age of onset and persistence of delinquent behaviour and on maltreatment and family interferences by, for example, the Child Protection Services (CPS; Dutch: Raad voor de Kinderbescherming). However, such childhood problems are closely interrelated and the presence of multiple problems in childhood drastically increases the probability of adverse adult outcomes [19, 23, 24]. Therefore, studies should focus on combinations of risk factors in young children [13, 25, 26], instead of focusing on single risk factors, and assess to what extent these combinations can predict outcomes later in life. In this way, it may be possible to distinguish among youth risk profiles which may help tailor primary, secondary and tertiary prevention strategies. The present study tackled these issues by retrospectively studying combined risk factors and long-term outcomes of both childhood judicial and civil CPS interferences in multi-problem young adults.