Youth offending services failing black and mixed heritage boys, inspectors warn

A report by the inspectorate of probation found that many of these boys face multiple disadvantages in their life, at school and with their mental health.

Inspectors found that 60 per cent of black and mixed heritage boys, who had received a court sentence, had previously been excluded from school and half had faced racial discrimination in their life.

Meanwhile, a third had been the victim of criminal exploitation and a quarter have a disability.

But despite these needs they are less likely than their white peers to be referred to early help services, inspectors found.

One boy told the inspectorate said: “It has an effect on me, how society views it as if your black and act in a certain type of way…you’re just thinking how come I get profiled because of the colour of my skin.”

Chief inspector of probation Justin Russell questions why support services are not intervening earlier to support black and mixed heritage boys.

“Youth justice staff told us the majority of black and mixed heritage boys that they work with have multiple and complex needs, for example with education or emotional and mental health issues,” said Russell.

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“Yet many of these children are only receiving support with these needs for the first time through the criminal justice system. This is simply unacceptable."

He added: “Youth justice workers are united in the view that the early detection of problems would have led to different outcomes for these children. Instead, these boys are acquiring criminal records that can have lifelong consequences.”

A lack of confidence among support services to talk to the boys and their families about racism, culture and ethnicity is among concerns raised by the inspectorate.

It is also concerned around the use of stop and search tactics by the police, which are disproportionately targeting black and mixed heritage boys.

“Some of the boys we heard from had been stopped and searched by police four or five times a week,” said Russell.  

“These experiences affect how the boys interact with all parts of the criminal justice system – even those that are trying to offer support.”

According to latest government youth justice figures 41 per cent of children in custody in the year ending March 2020 are black or of mixed heritage.

The inspectorate’s report is based on a review of 173 cases from across nine youth offending services, as well as inspection data over the last year.

They make a total of 18 recommendations to government and local services to ensure boys are receiving help earlier and not being discriminated against.

The Home Office is being called on by the inspectorate to publish local and national stop and search data, broken down by gender, age and ethnicity.

Meanwhile, the Department for Education is being urged to bolster early help for black and mixed heritage boys with special educational needs.

Another recommendation for DfE is to improve guidance to schools to ensure that boys from these ethnic groups are not being disproportionately excluded.

Youth offending services need to strengthen their gathering of feedback from boys and their families. Managers in youth offending teams need to make sure they are “sufficiently focused on diversity”, the EPI report adds.