Black children in care face ‘double whammy of disadvantage’ in youth justice system
Joe Lepper
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Black and ethnic minority children in care are being “accelerated” through the criminal justice system due to a dual threat of “care system failings” and racism by police and the courts, an academic report has warned.
It warns that looked-after children from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are more likely to be criminalised and impacted by instability within care placements.
They are also more likely to receive a custodial sentence when being dealt with by courts, the report warns.
This effectively doubles the disadvantage they encounter in the youth justice system.
Based on in depth interviews with children’s services and youth justice experts as well as analysis of latest data, the research found that failings in the care and criminal justice systems “result in institutionalised criminalisation of black and minority ethnic looked-after children who must contend with both the stigma of their ethnicity and of being in care”.
The research, by Lancaster University Law School research associate Dr Katie Hunter, found that black children are among the hardest hit group. They “are subjected to progressively harsher treatment of at all stages of the youth justice system”, she found.
Experts interviewed are particularly critical of “excessive” policing of black children, which they said was being driven by racism.
Courts are more likely to hand out “harsher sentences” to black children than those who are white, added the research.
“Analyses of official data indicate that black children are more likely to be punished and to be punished more severely at all stages of the youth justice process,” it said.
The research has been published weeks after the Youth Justice Board (YJB) and Ministry of Justice revealed that black children account for 29 per cent of the youth custody population, an increase of 18 per cent compared with a decade ago.
YJB chair Keith Fraser said that the youth justice system is “categorically failing on every count to halt the overrepresentation of black children”.
According to HM Inspectorate of Prisons figures from 2021, more than half of boys in the secure estate have experience of care. This is around double the proportion seen a decade earlier.
