ANNEX: RECOMMENDATIONS RELATING TO DATA
AND RESEARCH ON YOUNG BLACK PEOPLE'S OVERREPRESENTATION IN THE
CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
A full and accurate picture of overrepresentation
will be vital to any strategy to reduce it. We are encouraged
that the Home Office has recently commissioned the development
of advice and guidance on the collection and use of a minimum
dataset on race statistics. We recommend that further action on
statistics on race and the criminal justice system should include
the following measures:
a) When aggregating data on ethnicity, all
agencies should use the same ethnicity categories to allow clear
comparison of data at different stages of the system[366]
b) The Youth Justice Board should set robust
targets to Youth Offending Teams to improve recording of the ethnicity
of young people being supervised, including a requirement for
YOT data returns to be disaggregated by gender and ethnicity simultaneously
c) The government should pilot research on the
feasibility of police forces collecting data on victimisation,
to be published as part of the Home Office's Section 95 statistics
d) The Crown Prosecution Service should provide
ethnic data on charging and disposals
e) The Home Office should collect data from police
forces on the proportion of people arrested where no further action
is taken following arrest, by ethnicity. This should be published
as part of the annual section 95 report
f) Ethnic data for those who are charged with
an offence should be published as part of s95 data. This is only
currently available for juveniles[367]
g) Government should collect and publish data
on the ethnicity and age of those convicted of firearms and knife
crime offences
h) Government should include a breakdown of the
type of weapon used in its statistics on firearms offences, to
allow distinction to be made between crimes involving air weapons
and those involving other types of firearms.
i) Section 95 statistics on race should provide
more information about gender to build a fuller picture of differences
between males and females of different ethnicities.
j) Government should provide a breakdown of the
application of ASBOs and fixed penalty notices to different ethnic
groups.
k) We recommend that compliance on provision
of statistics at the local level should be monitored on a regular
basis by the appropriate government department and by the inspectorates
for each agency.
l) Government should undertake monitoring of
CPS charging decisions to verify that there is no undue bias to
charging decisions in cases where the suspect is black
In addition to further statistical data, there
is a need for further research to help interpret the statistics
and pinpoint effective solutions. In particular, there is a need
to understand how existing interventions impact on young people
of different ethnic minorities. We understand that the Youth Justice
Board is planning to commission research into the needs of BME
young people and young women and how these are met by criminal
justice agencies, and into interventions for young people who
have committed racially motivated offences.[368]
We also understand that the Commission for Racial Equality and
the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) are planning research
into the causes of ethnic minority young people's experience of
the criminal justice system.[369]
We suggest that the Government and, where appropriate, the Economic
and Social Research Council should also consider commissioning
research into:
m) The extent of, and reasons for, different
offending patterns among different ethnic groups
n) The progress of different ethnic groups through
the Criminal Justice System through arrest and charge to prison,
probation and aftercare. This should be a comprehensive study
with qualitative and quantitative elements.
o) Factors that protect and place young people
at risk of involvement in crime
p) Youth affiliation, peer groups and gangs and
their relationship with criminal behaviour
q) Availability of post-sentence support for
offenders of different ethnic origins and their impact on recidivism
r) Alternatives to use of stop and search by
the police
s) Effectiveness of conflict resolution schemes
and initiatives aiming to reduce retribution and reprisals
t) Reasons for any ethnic differences in the
decision to charge young defendants, and into ethnic differences
in the number of young people remanded in custody before sentence
u) Extent of, and reasons for, ethnic differences
in sentencing, to establish whether any differences are accounted
for by case characteristics.
There is a particularly pressing need to improve
police forces' collection and use of data. In terms of stop and
search, Baroness Scotland told us that "we will be able to
move, even if it takes five, ten years, into real-time data"
to enable forces to determine where disproportionality may lie
within a force or unit".[370]
This data would seem to be key in identifying potential areas
of discrimination. We recommend that the police should move as
quickly as possible to gather and use this data, and would hope
it could be made available within the next five years.
Force level data will not always capture the
full picture of if, where and how discrimination is occurring.
We therefore recommend that police forces should be required to
analyse their own data at Basic Command Unit level and to demonstrate
to local criminal justice boards, police authorities and/or the
Home Secretary that they are using this to inform practice. In
many areas this will mean working with small numbers, so police
forces should use qualitative approaches to understand the factors
which underlie overrepresentation.
366 Dr Marian FitzGerald, Statistical Evidence,
p. 69 [see footnote 34 above] Back
367
Ibid., p. 41 [see footnote 34 above] Back
368
Ev 381 Back
369
Ibid. Back
370
Q 651 Back
| 
