CYP Now - Probation service urged to demonstrate ‘greater consideration of diversity’

Youth offending services must “show greater consideration and confidence” in their work with young people and staff from ethnic minority backgrounds, the chief inspector of probation has said.

Justin Russell says the lack of consideration around diversity in probation and youth offending services is disappointing. Picture: HMI Probation

Despite one fifth of all young people and adults on probation being from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds Justin Russell’s annual report on probation finds “very little evidence of probation officers speaking to service users about their race, ethnicity or experiences of discrimination”.

“Some officers – by their own admission – avoided talking about these issues altogether,” Russell said.

Describing the findings as “disappointing”, he also notes “concerns about every stage of probation supervision from the quality of pre-sentencing reports to the way that minority ethnic service users were involved in their assessment and sentence plans”.

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