Initiative to cut rate of BAME young people in youth custody

The Journey of the Child model was developed by the YJB to highlight key stages when BAME young people are vulnerable to being treated unfairly because of their racial heritage.

The organisation hopes the materials, which have been published online today along with statistics demonstrating disproportionality across the sectors, including education, mental health, policing and courts, will help agencies focus minds on addressing the problem.

It outlines what the YJB describes as "compelling evidence" that children from BAME backgrounds fare worse in many ways than the general population.

YJB chief executive Colin Allars said: "The YJB has published new materials that show how disproportionality is evident in multiple areas including indicators of poverty, arrest rates and youth custody. 

"It follows the journey of the child to show where disproportionality occurs.

"Alongside publishing the Journey of the Child materials, we are working with partners, including the police and government to make changes to their practices and to raise awareness and funding pathfinders to develop and promote good practice."

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The materials highlight how, among other factors, BAME children are more likely to live in deprived areas. 

For example, 20 per cent of those in the 10 per cent most deprived areas are black, even though black people make up only 4 per cent of the general population.

At school, black children are the most likely to receive free school meals.

In terms of educational attainment the picture is mixed. In Key Stage 1, for children aged five to seven, all ethnicities perform broadly to the same standards.

This changes in Key Stage 2. Chinese children are by far the highest achievers for meeting expected standards in reading, writing and maths. While 82 per cent of Chinese children meet the standard, other ethnic groups are all below 70 per cent. 

For Asian children the figure is 69 per cent, for mixed-race children 67 per cent, for white children 65 per cent and for black children 64 per cent.

At GCSE level, the standards of both black (39 per cent) and white (42 per cent) ethnic groups remain below the national average.

Black pupils are also more likely to be permanently excluded from school than the general population, although white children of Irish Traveller heritage and gypsy Roma children have the highest exclusion rates, at 7.3 per cent and 7.1 per cent respectively.

In pupil referral units there is a slightly higher proportion of black children (7 per cent) than there is in the general school population (6 per cent). 

Mixed-race pupils make up just 5 per cent of the general school population but 9 per cent of those in pupil referral units.

The picture within the court system is more stark. Black children are four times more likely to be arrested than white children, according to police figures, with white children twice as likely to get a caution than black children once they have been arrested.

Black children also have a higher representation among those arrested for more serious crimes, accounting for 41 per cent of all robbery offences, 30 per cent of drugs offences and 26 per cent of weapons offences. 

But black children account for only 19 per cent of all offences committed.

If convicted, BAME children are twice as likely to be given a custodial sentence.

One of the consequences of this is that a quarter of all children in custody are black, five times higher than their proportion in the general population.

Government statistics suggest that while BAME children are more likely to reoffend, those white children that reoffend commit more offences when they do so.