Examination of Witnesses (Questions 391
- 399)
TUESDAY 16 JANUARY 2007
MS SUKHVINDER
STUBBS AND
MR MARC
EDWARDS
Q391 Chairman: Thank you very much
for coming. Perhaps you would both introduce yourselves briefly
for the record.
Ms Stubbs: I am Sukhvinder Stubbs,
Chief Executive of Barrow Cadbury Trust which is a grant-making
foundation. We have a long history of supporting grass roots groups
in the Handsworth, Aston and Lozells area of Birmingham which,
by coincidence, is where I also grew up. Last year we published
a report from our commission on young adults and the criminal
justice system which addressed the challenges of the transition
to adulthood.
Mr Edwards: I am Marc Edwards,
Director of The Young Disciples. I am also a Vice-Chair of the
national IAG for ACPO. I am also a Commissioner on the Barrow
Cadbury Trust for young adults within the criminal justice system.
My perspective in this framework is ethnographic in that I come
with grass roots and real life experience. I hope that my input
will enlighten the Committee.
Q392 Mr Benyon: I think that the
report is one of the most impressive pieces of work I have seen
since I have been here. I came to its launch. All the great and
good were there. The Minister gave it the Government's imprimatur.
Do you believe that the recommendations in the report have been
followed up? Do you still feel optimistic that the hard work which
went into it has been accepted by those at the centre of government
who are involved in this key issue?
Ms Stubbs: One of the key recommendations
was the issue of growing up, that kids just do not turn adult
overnight. On their 18th birthdays they just do not grow up and
become mature. This is really a process that takes several years.
If you compare university children and the way they are mollycoddled
through to their early twenties, you just do not get that with
young adults who are at risk. The way to address it is to have
flexible sentencing that takes into account the experiences, the
life chances and backgrounds of the young adults coming through
the criminal justice system. As it stands, that has not been addressed
by the criminal justice system. A Home Office review group has
been set up to try to address that issue. It looks as if they
are having difficulty making a specific recommendation to achieve
flexible sentencing. We are doing some further work based on European
models where flexible sentencing is in place to see if we can
keep knocking on that door and press for change. We are also setting
up what we call Transition to Adulthood (T2A) teams. We are piloting
them ourselves with the criminal justice agencies in the West
Midlands and West Yorkshire. By that means we are trying to see
whether, at least at the intermediate stage, we can make some
stronger links between youth and adult justice and ensure that
more intensive support available through key workers is given
to those young people.
Q393 Mr Benyon: I think it is important
that the recommendation on page 23 of your report is on the record.
You recommend that, "T2A Teams and the T2A Champion should
give special attention to the needs and special circumstances
of young black and minority ethnic adults. This should include
ongoing scrutiny of programmes and policies to ensure they do
not treat young black and minority ethnic adults with disproportionate
severity, and sustained efforts are made to develop culturally
appropriate interventions for distinct groups of young adult offenders."
Clearly, you identify what we are looking at in this piece of
work as a very important subject. Would you like to comment on
how you feel that young black males in particular are so important
as distinct from other groups in your work, looking at the criminal
justice system?
Ms Stubbs: Black kids are disproportionately
affected by the risk factors which include poverty and their experience
of coming from families subject to stress. They include qualification
levels and also unemployment. There is a cumulative disadvantage
that impacts on their life chances which is compounded by what
is at least prejudice and at worst racism within the criminal
justice system. We believe that black kids are not predisposed
to crime but they are predisposed to the factors that lead to
crime and that the criminal justice system does not adequately
redress that.
Mr Edwards: Even though you have
already defined "black", my definition of "young
black males" would include other elements of sub-cultures.
If you look at young people in inner-city areas, whether they
are poor white kids or poor black or Asian kids, most of the trends
and traits and their experiences are the same. Young black males
have a prevalent culture which protrudes into other sets of young
people. It is very influential as a peer influence among others
as well. That is something which can be utilised in a positive
way; it can divert young people in a positive way. At the moment
it is utilised in a negative way. If one looks at poor inner-city
children, their behaviourisms, their dress and the way they act
and speak and the places they hang out are quite similar. If you
are to look at young black adults you will also have to look at
the experiences of other similar sub-cultures within that context.
Q394 Mr Benyon: Ms Stubbs, can you
tell us how far young black people in particular are the focus
of Barrow Cadbury Trust's funding strategies and give specific
examples?
Ms Stubbs: It is interesting that
this Committee focuses specifically on blacks in the sense of
African Caribbean. Our research shows that black people are six
times more likely to be stopped and searched. They are more likely
to be arrested and be in prison than whites, but our research
also shows that Asians, in particular Pakistani and Bangladeshi
young men, are being disproportionately affected as well. We are
interested in having a socially just criminal justice system.
We have an interest in having social justice before young people
are incarcerated and are caught in the criminal justice system.
That affects children of all races. It is just that white working
class kids are less easily segmented and studied and stereotyped,
so they are not stigmatised in the same way. We are interested
in improving the criminal justice system across the board but
we recognise particular discrepancies in the use of powers that
affect black youngsters and also increasingly Asians.
Q395 Mr Benyon: We received evidence
from previous witnesses who said, putting it in basic terms, that
in some communities if one was not feared one feared. How far
is victimisation among young back people in particular a concern
to you? Do you feel that being a victim of crime is also a link
in some cases to those who commit crimes?
Mr Edwards: I think that it starts
at childhood. A lot of people who are involved in crime were at
one time the victims of crimes. Would you repeat the last part
of the question?
Q396 Mr Benyon: Do you think that
in many cases the culture in certain communities where one must
be either a fearing person or a feared person draws certain people
into the commission of crime? Therefore, is being a victim as
much a contributory factor as the commission of crimes?
Mr Edwards: I would also look
at the policies, for example Every Child Matters. One of its key
frameworks is Staying Safe. A lot of people to repel fear arm
themselves or make themselves look fearful to other people. Somebody
mentioned something like that earlier in connection with gangs.
Gangs subject communities to fear. In the realm of youth crime
young people use that as a facilitation to perpetrate some of
their negative behaviourisms on other young people. To me, that
is a spiral of negative peer influence which propels young people
into crime. I believe that perpetrated fear is something to be
looked at.
Q397 Chairman: One point I pick up
from the report is the foremost idea in the criminal justice system
that the punishment should fit the offender rather than that the
punishment should fit the crime, in the good old Gilbert &
Sullivan phrase. How do you maintain public confidence when you
do that? Just before Christmas a young man gave evidence. He had
been involved in one of the gang X-it programmes. He had been
given a three-year sentence for street robbery. He made the point
that that was to some extent, if not unfair, inappropriate because
by the time he came to be sentenced he had already got involved
in the gang X-it programme and taken the decision to change the
direction of his life. But in those circumstances it is quite
difficult to see how the person who was the victim of his street
robbery could be persuaded by the criminal justice system that
it was just to give him a different type of sentence because he
was changing his life. When you looked at these issues did you
explore how one could have a sentence that fitted where the offender
was in his transition to adulthood but still maintained the confidence
of the public at large and victims in particular that the system
was just?
Ms Stubbs: I think that is an
important point, but it is also important to remember that the
perception of certain communities is that they are not being protected
but policed, so there is a sense that the powers are being used
to ring-fence and control communities rather than protect victims
who may or may not be part of the same community. We also know
that the current criminal justice system is not working. Something
like 75% to 80% of offenders re-offend.
Q398 Chairman: That is a big debate,
but in a court case we are usually talking about the victim and
the question is whether if you give the offender what is perceived
as a lighter or alternative sentence in the way you propose you
can persuade the victim that justice has been done. There may
be all sorts of faults with the criminal justice system as a whole,
but you need to be able to answer that question. Have you examined
that in the course of your report?
Ms Stubbs: We looked at certain
models. We viewed Red Hook in the States, for example—that
uses community courts—and sentencing practices there. When
the sentencing is closer to the community and more sensitive and
responsive to the locality the public perception can be much more
readily moderated. We are going on to look at experiences in other
European Member States to see how they practise flexible sentencing
in a way that not only works for the person who has committed
the crime but also for the victim.
Q399 Martin Salter: We have received
considerable evidence. Your own commission report highlights the
fact that young black people face more general risk factors which
are known to promote crime: poverty, family breakdown, drug use
and so on. We are also aware from evidence we have received of
issues to do with lifestyle choices. There are lots of pressures
and cultural images coming from America and elsewhere that glamorise
and to some extent promote crime. What do you think is the balance
between these two sets of factors that lead young people to become
involved in the criminal justice system?
Mr Edwards: I think that it is
more to do with primary education. I have heard a lot of theories
about the MTV and hip-hop youth culture that influences young
people to go down the road of crime. I somewhat disagree with
that perspective, for the reason that if you look at the consumers
of hip-hop music most of them are working-class affluent people
who contribute to the mass sales of those records. In particular,
young black persons in inner cities download music from the internet
and copy it; they do not go into HMV or buy the music. Therefore,
when we look at the beneficiaries of this type of musical phenomenon
why do we not see the buyers and consumers of hip-hop running
around shooting each other and committing crime? We do not. I
say that the reason is their primary education and value base
which is different from that of someone coming from an inner-city
area who has not had that initial virtuous input. Further, growing
up in a stable family unit in a resourced area has some benefits
when it comes to the development of a person's character and personality.
A lot of people in inner-city areas lack emotional intelligence
and are deprived educationally. Therefore, the manifestation of
their behaviour and outputs will be quite different.
Ms Stubbs: I would stress the
cultural incompetence of the agencies that are supposed to engage
with youngsters. This goes all the way up from the police. In
our evidence we said that stop and search was the gateway into
the criminal justice system. The fact that stop and search is
disproportionately targeting black young men contributes to that
overrepresentation, but it also goes across other agencies, including
the welfare agencies, for example even the ability or inability
to deal with mental health problems. I think the 1997 ONS survey
revealed that 90% of 18 to 21 year-olds in prison had at least
one form of mental illness, often linked to drug misuse. That
sort of dual diagnosis is not readily factored into the analysis
and the treatment available for young people.
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