Page 54 - JUSTICE Tackling Racial Injustice - Children and the Youth Justice System

academics and organisations to begin studying the bias GRT people face to
include the marginalisation of this particular community in their research.
Criminal justice agencies must proactively improve their relationship
with the GRT community or take steps to better understand through a
GRT community engagement strategy. The Traveller Movement has
produced recommendations on how to do this and we fully endorse
them. 164

BAME girls and young women

2.66 BAME girls and young women also have a unique experience of the YJS,
which can vary across a diverse range of racial and ethnic groups. There
appears to be a lack of understanding of the different drivers for BAME girls
and young women (as opposed to BAME boys and young men) who interact
with the justice system. Furthermore, there is little understanding as to the
nature of BAME girls and young women’s offending. We consider that where
their experience is better understood, BAME girls and young women will be
less likely to be penalised harshly for crimes they may have committed and
instead more often safeguarded as victims of crime.

2.67 Despite increased knowledge of the risks, there is a lack of support services
available to help girls and young women. 165 Moreover, particularly for Asian
girls and women, there appears to be a reluctance to get legal help due to fear
of familial consequences.

2.68 Where they appear, BAME girls and young women are usually involved on the
periphery of gangs, with very few reaching the top of the hierarchy. In such
groups, it is common for BAME girls and young women to be sexually
exploited. In addition, BAME girls and young women involved in the broader
community of gangs, as mothers, sisters or girlfriends are likely not to be dealt
with as victims of crime but as criminals. 166 The inability of the YJS to see
them as victims may be partly due to girls and young women being perceived
and perhaps presenting themselves as strong and defiant in the face of a system

164 Understanding and improving relations between Gypsies, Roma, Irish Travellers and the Police,
2018, p. 4.
165 Ibid.
166 Race on The Agenda, This is it. This is my life…Female voice in violence, final report, (2011), p. 9.

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