Page 18 - JUSTICE Tackling Racial Injustice - Children and the Youth Justice System

collective professional and personal experience, we have been able to identify
where we consider the root of the issue lies and what can be done to address it.

1.13 Much of this report focuses on building understanding, rather than adapting
existing procedures within the YJS. We consider understanding to be a vital
aspect of proper procedure. Without it, equal justice outcomes are hard to
achieve. By increasing a decision-maker’s understanding of the child
appearing before them, our aim is to eradicate, and if not, minimise, the bias.
In this way, we hope that criminal justice agencies will be able to meet BAME
communities’ expectations of fair and impartial treatment at each stage of, and
interaction with, the YJS.

Limitations

1.14 Although this report will focus solely on matters within the CJS, we recognise
that many external factors influence a person's entry into it. BAME people are
more likely to be economically disadvantaged and live in impoverished areas.
Moreover, their children face higher rates of school exclusion, and are victims
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of violent crime at disproportionate rates. It is clear to us that these issues
must be addressed to truly eradicate racial disparity within the YJS. However,
this would require socio-economic, structural and legislative change which is
beyond our terms of reference. Instead, we have focused on how the YJS can
best respond to the deprivation and disadvantage that a significant number of
BAME children experience.

1.15 There is a lack of robust data throughout the YJS and CJS. Often, data is
inconsistently collected. In some cases, there is no requirement to report data
to a central body, meaning it must be collected from numerous individual
organisations, making research unnecessarily onerous. In further cases, data is
not recorded at all. This lack of data reduces the ability of researchers to fully
understand an issue and its root causes. In this report, we highlight areas where
improved data gathering or data sharing would be useful in order to design
interventions that address relevant issues. Overall, we consider that the CJS
must improve its collection and publication of data. In the first instance, we

28 For example, the homicide risk for Black people between 16-24 is five times higher than for White
people. See: V. Dodd, ‘Murder risk in England and Wales much higher for Black people,’ The Guardian,
17 November 2020.

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