UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 181-i

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

 

 

YOUNG BLACK PEOPLE AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

 

 

Tuesday 19 December 2006

JASON LORD COVER, HAYLEY LITTEK, DEXTER PADMORE, LEON SIMMONDS, BIANCA WAITE and JULIA WOLTON

Evidence heard in Public Questions 129 - 258

 

 

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Home Affairs Committee

on Tuesday 19 December 2006

Members present

Mr John Denham, in the Chair

Mr Richard Benyon

Ms Karen Buck

Mrs Anne Cryer

Mrs Janet Dean

Margaret Moran

Bob Russell

Martin Salter

Mr David Winnick

________________

 

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Jason Lord Cover, Hayley Littek, Dexter Padmore, Leon Simmonds, Bianca Waite and Julia Wolton, X-it Programme, gave evidence.

Q129 Chairman: Good morning. Thank you very much for coming this morning. We are really grateful to you. As you know, we are having an inquiry into the involvement of young black people in the Criminal Justice System and we have had a number of sessions with people, like you have, coming to give evidence to us. The Committee has also been around the country visiting young people in different cities, and we will be doing that again the New Year, but we thought it was really important to have people like yourselves to come and give evidence to us here on the record for our inquiry. Just as a handling point, with six witnesses we will not, in the hour we have got, be able to let every person in on every single question, otherwise we will not get past the first couple of questions. The opening questions I will direct to all of you, but after that, if somebody asks a question that you particularly want to answer, would you indicate and we will bring you in. Otherwise members of the Committee might direct the questions to a particular individual or a couple of people, but we will see how it goes. It is all quite informal anyway. To explain for the record, I am John Denham, I Chair the Committee. What I would like is for each of you to give your full name for the record and then we will start the question session. Dexter, would you like to go first?

Dexter: Dexter Padmore.

Leon: Leon Simmonds.

Hayley: Hayley Littek.

Julia: Julia Wolton.

Bianca: Bianca Waite.

Jason: Jason Cover.

Q130 Chairman: Can I start with a very direct question. Obviously we are talking about young people involved with the criminal justice system. I wonder if each of you could explain, very briefly, what your own involvement with crime or the Criminal Justice System has been. What sort of things have you been involved in and what sort of experience can you bring to the Committee this morning? Can I start with you, Dexter, and work our way along.

Dexter: I have been through YOT and prison.

Q131 Chairman: What sort of offences did you get involved in?

Dexter: Robbery.

Q132 Chairman: Leon.

Dexter: Yes, I have been involved in certain offences like robbery, but I have not been to prison or nothing like that.

Q133 Chairman: Hayley.

Hayley: I have been arrested before. I have not been to prison, but I know other people's experiences.

Q134 Chairman: What sort of things did you get into trouble for?

Hayley: I was arrested for assaulting a police officer.

Q135 Chairman: Although, as you say, you have not been convicted of that. Okay. Bianca.

Bianca: I had various occasions years ago of involvement with the police and I have been arrested but I have not had no convictions. Everything was dropped.

Q136 Chairman: Jason.

Jason: I have been on probation and in prison.

Q137 Chairman: For what sort of things?

Jason: Robbery.

Q138 Chairman: You know that our inquiry is about young black people in the criminal justice system, and that is not because black people are the only people who do crime, but if you look at the figures a lot of black people end up in different parts of the criminal justice system. Do you think, from your own experience, there are particular things happening to you or to your community or the young people you know which is leading to this larger number of people getting involved in trouble with the law? Bianca.

Bianca: Yes. There are things like education that is lax in number and youths that get kicked out of school on a regular basis, which obviously leaves them with nothing to do, and they are on the streets 24/7. They have too much time on their hands, so that leads to crime alone.

Q139 Chairman: So exclusions from school. Hayley, do you have a view on that?

Hayley: Yes, basically what Bianca is saying. There are not enough youth clubs and things to do after school. Young black people do tend to get kicked out of school and excluded from school for petty reasons, which does not really make sense, and once that happens they have got no support. The same as when they go to prison, they do not have no support after that, they do not have the right support to do something positive with themselves.

Q140 Chairman: Can I ask how many of you have personal experience of being excluded from school at any time. That is four out of the five of you. What happened in your case, Dexter?

Dexter: I do not know. I was excluded for something petty really.

Q141 Chairman: How old were you when you got excluded?

Dexter: About thirteen.

Q142 Chairman: What happened after that?

Dexter: I got back to school, but I did not get permanently excluded though.

Q143 Chairman: Leon.

Leon: I got permanently excluded at the beginning of Year 11 for fighting, I believe it was, and they sent me to a Pupil Referral Unit, and, to be honest with you, I cannot really say that actually did help me, it was not a better case scenario, if you see what I am saying.

Q144 Chairman: You may not have been arrested, but had you been involved in breaking the law at all before you got excluded from school?

Leon: Yes, I had.

Q145 Chairman: What sort of things?

Leon: Things like shop-lifting, or theft and things like that.

Q146 Chairman: One more general question and then we will move on to other members. Exclusion from school has been raised as a big issue. Do you think there are any other influences or pressures on you and your friends that lead to crime?

Bianca: In our community, because there is so much violence and all the rest of it, obviously everybody feels that, to keep safe, they have got to be involved in it. It is like you cannot not be involved in it and not still be in trouble, and so obviously that leads to crime, and you have still got to be up there to have nobody else troubling you, that just leads to crime alone and you need money and you need guns and the rest of it, so it just builds up constantly.

Q147 Chairman: I do not want to take the questions that other people ask, but I would like to follow up on that point. Can you say a bit more about why it is so hard to say, "I do not want to be part of that"?

Bianca: Because the pressure that is on you, you want what they have got, and it is like now it has got so worse where you cannot even go on to certain estates without being in a certain crew, so that there is trouble. Either you are with them or you are against them. That is the way they look at it.

Chairman: I am going to take other people's questions if I am not careful. Martin Salter.

Q148 Martin Salter: Looking through the notes, a couple of you have been arrested. Jason, you were stabbed, it says here, Bianca, you were excluded from school for fighting and carrying a knife. If that is not true, that is fine. Anyway, my question is not about you individually, it is: how common is it for people to carry weapons and why do people do it?

Bianca: To feel safe.

Q149 Martin Salter: You mentioned that it has almost become a kind of---

Bianca: It is just normal. It is to feel safe. You cannot be having nice things and all that walking through Brixton but yet you do not talk to nobody. You have to be in somebody's crew to walk through Brixton and feel safe and, therefore, you have to be somebody to be walking through Brixton with your stuff but feeling safe. That is the point that it has got to. You have got all these drugs dealers as well. That is the point it has got to. Everybody wants to have what everybody has got.

Q150 Martin Salter: Dexter, do you know people who are happy walking around not carrying knives or guns?

Dexter: Yes. It is not everyone that walks around with guns and knives. I am just saying that some people just walk around to protect themselves, not to harm people but to protect themselves and to defend themselves.

Q151 Martin Salter: Do you not think there is a danger that it just escalates: the more people start carrying knives and guns the more other people start carrying knives and guns and then, eventually, at some point, somebody is going to use them, so it ceases to become a protection, it actually becomes a threat, just the fact that you are armed?

Dexter: In some ways, yes, but everybody wants to protect themselves.

Q152 Martin Salter: How much of this level of violence is related to the drugs trade, how much of it is related to the fact that, as Bianca said, people want what other people have got?

Dexter: It is connected. Basically it is related to it, it is connected to it.

Q153 Martin Salter: Hayley, what do you reckon?

Hayley: I think it is all related because a lot of people go into selling drugs to get what they want, and in the same way someone will stab someone to get what they want, and in the same way a person who sells drugs will carry a knife for protection, if you know what I mean, so it is all connected. It is all about getting what you want or what you feel you need or what you cannot have.

Q154 Martin Salter: So carrying weapons is almost essential if you are involved in the drugs trade, if you want to at least be successful?

Hayley: Some people do feel it is essential, yes, for their own protection.

Bianca: You cannot be a drug dealer and making a lot of money but not carry any weapon.

Q155 Martin Salter: Why is that?

Bianca: Not even carry any weapons; you have to be known to say, "They would." You might not have to do it every day, but you have to have people thinking that you would, because, obviously, other people will think, "All right, you are not about nothing. You are making all this money. Let us rob you."

Q156 Martin Salter: So, in order to enforce your market share, in order to retain your status as a drug dealer in the community, you either need to be carrying weapons or you need to control people who do carry weapons.

Hayley: You need to be able to---. Other people need to know that you are able to protect and defend what you have got. Other people need to know they cannot mess about with what you have got and your business. That is what people need to know. It is not about always carrying weapons, it is just about having that status that people know the line not to cross. That is what it is about.

Q157 Martin Salter: The possession of a weapon, or the ability to use a weapon, or the potential to use a weapon is a means of establishing respect within the community as well though?

Hayley: No.

Q158 Martin Salter: No?

Hayley: No, some people feel that is the way to gain respect, but to gain respect by using a weapon or carrying a weapon, you are gaining respect by people who do not respect themselves or know what respect is.

Q159 Martin Salter: I could not agree with you more, but it was what you were saying, Bianca, that to be successful in the drugs trade you need, at the very least, to demonstrate that you have got the potential to do violence if necessary?

Hayley: To defend yours, yes.

Martin Salter: Thank you very much Chairman?

Q160 Chairman: Jason, can I follow that up. You were talking about an involvement in robbery. How common is it for people who go out to rob to carry weapons intending to use them or at least to threaten with them?

Jason: I cannot answer that question. From my perspective, in my previous there has been no violence, so I am not really a violent offender anyway. Certain people use violence where the victim will not co-operate, therefore they would use that for the threat, but obviously at the same time they just want the goods.

Q161 Chairman: Do you have a view on the same question? Do people usually carry knives if they are going out to rob? Is that because they plan to use them or threaten with them?

Leon: From my perspective, people do not go out with knives to actually use to rob people because they see it as that would be a bigger sentence, you might as well say. If I was to rob not using no knife or nothing and you was taken to court, the sentence would be shorter, but if you was to use a knife or something, that would make something more serious. I do not think people actually do go out there with the intention to use a knife to rob someone or anything.

Q162 Chairman: Dexter.

Dexter: Basically saying what Leon said: people do not go out intentionally to use it, just to protect themselves, but not everyone uses weapons. People think everyone uses weapons, not everyone. The previous robbery I was convicted for there was no weapons or violence involved, nothing like that.

Q163 Chairman: If this question is completely unfair say so, but I will put it to you anyway. There was the dreadful murder of the young lawyer who was stabbed near the tube station that was in all the press recently. When you looked at that story, which was in all the newspapers and on television, and you saw the young men who had been sent down for life for that murder, did you, as people who used to be involved in robbery, think, "That could have been me", or was that just something in a completely different type of league or activity? Is it the same slippery slope or is it totally different?

Dexter: From what I saw that was completely different. I do not know no-one that is like that, in it. So that was just something new for me. I have not seen nothing like that before.

Q164 Chairman: Leon.

Leon: I have not known or seen anyone that has gone through that extent of killing someone to get what they want.

Q165 Ms Buck: Can I pick up something that Bianca said, and maybe one or two of the others of you have said, about wanting "stuff" and "your stuff" and either wanting it or protecting what you have got. What are we talking about? What is the "stuff" that we are talking about?

Bianca: Money to survive.

Q166 Ms Buck: For what?

Bianca: For everything - clothes, trainers, jewellery, everything - those things that are essentials to them, which is things like clothes. If they have got kicked out of home, they are not in school, they are not getting employed, they have not got nowhere else to get the money from, so they see everybody else making money quick and think, "Yes, I want that", and start doing things to get that, but obviously, at the same time, it is just to survive. They cannot keep on doing it, they do not want to do it, it is just that they know there is no other way out. There is people that try to go through the legal way, people that is too young to even get employed, so they turn to the illegal life.

Q167 Ms Buck: Can I ask you what you think about that. Partly it is about age. There is a different question if you are kind of 18, 19 maybe - and if you are not at home you have got to live, that is one thing - but maybe when you are a bit younger it is about what kind of stuff do you feel that you have to have that you cannot get any other way. Can I ask somebody else? Hayley.

Hayley: For younger people, it is more they want to be like the older people they see, because that is their role models, the people on the street. A lot of the young people these days, their parents are not around because they are busy at work, or whatever, trying to put food on the table, so young people do not have real role models, and they look up to the people they see out on the street with all the latest phones, and big chains, and watches, and all the new trainers and new tracksuits and they want that too. They want to be just like the older people that they see. They think they are successful because they have all the latest stuff, so that is what they want to be. That is why a lot of the time they will go through it, the younger people.

Julia: I want to come in here because working with these young people a lot of it is about basic survival. We are not talking about fashion items and things. For some of the young people I work with it is about finding money for rent, even when they are under age at 14 or 15, it is about finding food, so some of it is basic needs. I just want to emphasise that.

Q168 Ms Buck: That is fair enough. I am not trying to draw a conclusion on this; I am interested in knowing from you what is the balance. Is it about, for some people, survival, is it about aspiring to a particular look or lifestyle that you cannot work out on the money you have got?

Bianca: It is also about---. When I said those people that are doing this crime and drugs and that that does not want to do it, it is also about they have tried the legal way, they have tried to go in college, have not got in college, got kicked out of school, so they have not got the qualifications to do that, but if they cannot get jobs, they cannot get employed, they go for the wrong side lifestyle. If you speak to most of them they will tell you that they do not want to be in this, they want to just make enough to get their mum out of this, they do not want their mum living in an area like this. They are not really enjoying it, because if they were enjoying it they would want to be in it forever. They want to get out.

Q169 Ms Buck: Can I take a view from Dexter or Leon?

Leon: I will just say that people do it as a thing where the way the world is you need a name, like, on your estate. You need that type of status. If you are living on an estate, that type of estate where a lot of gang-related things are going on and a lot of robberies are going on, you feel, not like you have got to be involved but like there is no other way of doing things, if you see what I am saying. There is no other route out unless something could happen if you do not do this or if you do not do that, like they may try a switch on you, or you are thinking about your family's health or something like this if you do not do this, what they might do to your family.

Q170 Ms Buck: I was going to move on to this issue about gangs and crews and what you feel is the difference, where it starts. Both of you have talked about estates with a very strong gang culture. Is that everywhere? Where does it start?

Bianca: It is territorial issues.

Q171 Ms Buck: Territorial?

Bianca: Yes. That is what it used to be, that is what it has always been, but it has just escalated over the years and it has just got to the point where no-one is picking up fists, everyone is picking up guns. That is why it has just got so bad.

Q172 Ms Buck: What about you two? Do you all live on estates? Everyone here grew up on an estate?

Bianca: Yes.

Dexter: Yes. Basically, everyone thinks that someone who joins a gang is doing it for a negative reason, or whatever, but there is not enough choice here. Basically some people are not really raised with love or whatever, so the only place where they are going to find love is from the streets or from their friends. People say gangs this and gangs that, and that is when they get involved with the gangs.

Q173 Ms Buck: What age do you feel you started either being a part of that or seeing other people being part of it?

Hayley: It is getting younger. I have seen kids at the age of about nine, ten joining gangs. Their family---. Like Dexter was saying, what you do not get at home---. Everyone has needs as humans. If you do not get it at home you will find it somewhere else, and the street is the next place. It is on your doorstep, the gangs are outside your house, you see them everywhere you go and if they are offering what you need, you will take it.

Q174 Ms Buck: Is there a difference between your mates and a gang that is more organised and is part of a criminal scene?

Hayley: No, because a gang is what people decide to call it. Friends are friends, business partners are business partners; associates are associates. What people want to label it is when it comes down to that. I see it as I have friends, I have associates and I have people that I work with and what not, that is how I see it, and I see it the same with gangs. If you are committing a crime, I see it as business partners. If you are selling drugs, you have business partners, you have your associates and you have your friends. It is the same, it is just how people perceive you, or how they want to label you, or what they decide they want to call you.

Q175 Ms Buck: We are coming at this, as John said, inquiring into young black people and the criminal justice system. To what extent is this more of a black phenomena? Your experience is that it is territorial, but is it also black? Our city is incredibly multi-racial. Is there something that is partly defined as black against other groups, Kurdish, or whatever?

Hayley: No.

Q176 Ms Buck: Is it all mixed?

Bianca: It is the whole system.

Hayley: When you look at most estates you will find there is a majority of black people on those estates. The majority of families on estates are black people.

Q177 Ms Buck: It depends where you are.

Hayley: Well, in Lambeth.

Bianca: If it was multi-cultural it would have been mixed cultures. There is no mixed cultures.

Hayley: The majority of the people on the estates in Lambeth are black families. There is a lot of black children and young people that will be friends with each other, grow up with each other and be gangs, whatever people want to call it. That is why it may seem more like a culture thing, but it is not a culture thing at all, because there are gangs where there are ten black people and one white person and an Indian boy or a Chinese girl. I have seen it happen, but it is just a majority of people on the estates in Lambeth.

Bianca: It is what gets shown. It is what we are perceived as.

Hayley: And what people choose to see as well.

Bianca: Yes, it is what people choose to see. They choose to see the negative side, they choose to say, yes, it is the black people.

Q178 Ms Buck: I am asking you what you think. I am asking you what your experience is, not what I perceive. There are other estates where I live where the vast majority of people on that estate are very mixed - Turkish, Kosovans, all sorts of different communities - and you can still see the gangs there, which is territorial, and sometimes you see conflicts between them, which is also partly territorial. I am just interested in knowing what your experience is.

Hayley: It is not culture in Lambeth.

Q179 Ms Buck: What about the policing relationship from your community? Has it all been negative? Has it changed?

Hayley: No. Lambeth has changed from a good couple of years ago, but since I have been around and been in contact with the police and known of the police most of my experiences with them or things that I have seen with them are negative, but there are positive police officers. It is down to the individual what they want to do, why they join the police force, and that depends on how they carry out their job. So, really and truthfully, I do not want to say that it is negative, but the majority of it is, but there is some positive policing as well.

Q180 Ms Buck: In the last couple of years, somebody will know, you have got these neighbourhood police teams, you have got beat officers?

Hayley: Yes.

Q181 Ms Buck: Is that something that you know about? Do you talk to them? Is there a lot of stop and search that you are on the receiving end of and you think it is unfair?

Dexter: It is always there. It is worse for the younger people because they come on the estate and they expect people to respect them without showing them respect first. In Lambeth, if you are a policeman, like, or these community officers, they think that they are police officers, they have got all the powers, so when they come on the estate they think they can do anything basically, but it is a bit worse though.

Q182 Ms Buck: Is that how they behave?

Dexter: That is how some behave. From what I have seen, that is how some behave.

Leon: From my perspective, I am not going to say that there are absolutely no positive police officers, because there are positive police officers out there, not just when they see people get arrested for doing the bad things, that actually want to help people that are being arrested for doing bad things as well, if you see what I am saying, but from living in Lambeth, with my perspective, there has been a lot of negative policing. You are getting stopped up to 20 times in a month and that.

Q183 Ms Buck: You have?

Leon: Yes, being stopped up to 20 times, or even more, in a month. So, to me, that is making me just feel negative about the police. They are not out there trying to stop everything close, if you see what I am saying. They will stop me 20 times in a month. I have not done nothing once on the 20 times in a month, and I have been stopped 20 times in a month.

Q184 Ms Buck: Is that because they know you and they are just keeping a tab on you?

Leon: It is police that do not even know me.

Q185 Mr Winnick: The police say that colour does not come into it, this is their argument, and they make no distinction whether black, white, Asian. What is your view on that? Do you believe that black youngsters are picked on more?

Dexter: I think, yes. If you come to Lambeth it is like almost, not guaranteed there but that is in your mind, that you are going to get stopped by a police officer, that is how you think, there is nearly a guarantee. You think, "When I come Lambeth I am going to get stopped by police." That is how young people think round Lambeth.

Q186 Mr Winnick: Are you saying, Dexter, that the police are not particularly concerned with white youngsters, that they would not apprehend them? Is that what you are saying?

Dexter: I am not saying that. I am just saying that when it is young black people, the ego to stop us, I do not know why they want to stop us so much, that is how it is.

Q187 Mr Winnick: You think there is an element of racism that has continued?

Dexter: Yes, that is what I think.

Q188 Mr Winnick: Is that your view is well?

Bianca: Yes. They should not be, but I still believe there is a lot of racist police controlling the community in Brixton and Lambeth as such, and I have seen examples for myself to know that that is still coming on.

Q189 Mr Winnick: Would you challenge the responsibility of the police to try and protect the lawful community, whether it is white, black, or whatever, it makes no difference, from those who are out to break the law? Do you not believe that is the responsibility of the police?

Bianca: Yes, if they was doing that, that is fine. Well, they are not.

Hayley: Are you asking---. What are you asking? You are saying the responsibility of the police is to prevent people from breaking the law?

Q190 Mr Winnick: Quite.

Hayley: But how do you know if someone is going to break law? You do not know. I could not look at Leon and say, "He is going to break the law." You cannot look at someone and say that they are going to break the law. Once someone has broken the law that is when the police are meant to come out. I understand what you are saying about prevention in a sense, but you cannot really see someone or know that they are going to break the law. How do you identify someone who is going to break the law? What does that person look like?

Q191 Mr Winnick: Would you be happier if there were more police officers who were black?

Hayley: I would be happier if the police spent more time doing their job rather than provoking young people, black, white, Chinese, Asian or whatever, and causing trouble and stopping and searching them all the time for no reason. I would be happy if the police done that.

Q192 Mr Benyon: Leading on from that question, what about schools, work, the Court Service, other organisations that you may have sought to come across. Have you found any institutional racism in any of those organisations?

Dexter: The courts.

Q193 Mr Benyon: In what way?

Dexter: There is large racism there. Young black men get sentenced more than white people. That is what I have seen basically. It is harder. That is what I have seen.

Q194 Mr Benyon: You honestly believe that?

Dexter: I believe. Not only do I believe, I know. That is how it is. From what I have seen that is how it is. I have experienced that as well, so that is why I know.

Q195 Chairman: So you believe that for the same crime you would be more likely to get a prison sentence than a community punishment or a longer sentence rather than a short one.

Dexter: I am talking about what I have been through.

Q196 Chairman: What was your experience? What happened to you that makes you feel the system was biased?

Dexter: I done a robbery with no weapons and no violence, basically, and I got three years. I am in jail and there is white boys that have done knife robberies in there that have got two years and six months and them type of sentences there. The thing is that I changed before I done that anyhow, I was doing different stuff before I went to jail, so I was stopping crime basically, and they still sent me to jail for that few years for some stupid thing.

Q197 Mr Benyon: I wondered if Jason wanted to come in?

Jason: There is people that go to prison for possession of firearms with bullets in it and get the same sentence we served. How does that work? We are sent down for street robbery and they get three years for a firearm, and it has got bullets, and they get the same, and then you have got people that get manslaughter and get three and a half years, whereas you get three years for street robbery. The people did not die, but you get some kind of three and a half years for manslaughter. How does it work?

Q198 Martin Salter: I was very interested in what you were saying about the police. I am a member of Parliament and people are always telling me, "You should be doing this, that and the other", and these are normally people who would not necessarily put themselves in the firing line at all. You are obviously bright young people. Would you ever consider joining the police.

Bianca: No.

Jason: No.

Dexter: No.

Leon: No.

Q199 Mr Winnick: You might have some difficulty.

Hayley: That is not what I want to do. I do not want to join the police. I work with the police, some officers, and I have been having meetings with the superintendent of Brixton to improve the policing, but I do not wish to be part of the police because that is not my dream of what I want to be.

Q200 Mr Winnick: I can understand that.

Bianca: If I did want to be part of the police, nothing could stop me, no-one could stop me, that is just not what I want to do, but I really do not mind working with the police to improve what I think is right.

Leon: It is not because it is not what I want to do, but I can say from what I know, how I have been brought up, it has been known that the police have been negative, they have not done anything where it has been positive, if you see what I am saying, for me to join the police, to think, "Oh, yes, I am going to be getting something positive out of this." The police do not do nothing to bond with the community, if you see what I am saying, to make the community feel a lot safer and assure us that they have got someone to talk to or someone to go to with their actual problems that they feel inside. The police in my estate are just seen as - I cannot even find the word for it, I do not even know the word for it.

Q201 Mr Winnick: Shall we start with "enemy"?

Leon: Something like that, yes.

Dexter: Monsters.

Q202 Mr Winnick: Monsters?

Dexter: Yes, monsters.

Chairman: We need to move on. Ann Cryer.

Q203 Mrs Cryer: I hope you do not think I am prying in asking this, but can you tell me, are any of you still living with your parents in a happy home? Jason is and Leon is. According to your notes, Bianca, you had to actually commit a crime in order to pay rent after relationships with your family broke down?

Julia: Can I just make a point that when we made these notes for people to read, the young people were quite keen that they were not reflected back into the Committee. I think some of those notes are quite personal, and I can see tension building up here.

Bob Russell: Can I say I am very impressed with Bianca's turn around. I am very impressed with Bianca's current lifestyle, the positive side.

Chairman: Thank you for clearing that up, Julia. What you can see is that members of the Committee have read your personal statements, because we found them very useful, but we will keep them completely as background information.

Mrs Cryer: At least two of you (and I am not going to refer to who) were actually asked to leave by your parents. I wonder if those who were asked to leave home could tell us why it was that their parents asked them to leave their home and what their view is of that: whether they felt that it was unfair or whether they could understand why their parents wanted them to leave? It looks to me as if leaving home was probably a turning point in your lives.

Q204 Chairman: If you want to talk more generally about people you know or friends rather than yourselves, please do so.

Bianca: I cannot really answer that for myself, because I was not asked to leave home at a young age, but the situation I have is totally different anyway. We are not going into that, but in having experience and knowing other people who have been asked to move out, like young boys, because they are constantly getting in trouble, their mum cannot take it any more. Then they go to their dad and their dad is not really showing them attention, so they end up staying at a friend's home and, basically, in the end, they end up with nowhere stable to live and then, obviously, that leads them to more unnecessary crime and the crime gets more serious. It comes from petty crime and it turns into more serious crime, because now they are on their own, mummy and daddy are not there any more, so in that experience, yes, I think it gets worse.

Q205 Mrs Cryer: You are talking about the people that you know. Once their parents ejected them from their home, for whatever reason, whether it was right or wrong, was any help given to them either by social services or any other organisation to help them access funds to pay their rents?

Hayley: No, I was not given any help. When I left home I was at "the housing" and "the housing" gave me the number for an emergency place to stay with another family because I had nowhere to stay for the night. They made me come back the next day and I was there for about three days until I got my hostel. After that I just went to collect my keys and I was by myself. I had to sort out my own benefits, I never had a key worker, I had no-one to help me, I had to rely on myself and do things all by myself. There was not no-one to help me.

Q206 Mrs Cryer: At that point if, say, a friendly social worker, at whatever level, were able to come into your life and say, "Look, Hayley, this is what you can do. You can access funds to help you." How old were you - eighteen?

Hayley: Seventeen.

Q207 Chairman: If you wanted to stay at school, say, you did not want to get a job, if someone had said at that point, someone in the school or a social worker, "Look, this is how you do it. You can get some money to pay your rent, you can stay on at school", would that have been helpful to you, do you think?

Hayley: Yes, it would be helpful to anyone. To have information is to be able to make decisions that make a change on your life. I could have been at school at that time and felt that I had to leave school and go and work in a hairdressers or something just to get my rent, or go and commit crime to get my rent. That would have changed my life if someone came to me and said to me, "Oh, you can do this, you can get this and that benefit." I had to find it all out myself. I was not prepared to go down that route. I found it all out myself and I was out of college at that time as well. It was all right for me, it was not such a big thing, but for someone else at a younger age who was at school or someone that is in college or someone who needs that help and support and is not independent enough to go and do it themselves, they need it. There is no doubt about it.

Bianca: It also does come down to the age difference as well, because obviously at a younger age, if you are under 16, there is no benefits or income help you can get other than child benefit, and that all goes back to your parents. Obviously, if you have moved out, they only offer you social services and foster care, and children are not going to be happy, "Let's go into foster care." That is just against everything; they are not going to do it, so they think, "I can do it by myself", and when they realise how hard it really is they turn to crime. I was living by myself when I was 14; when I was 16 I was living by myself as well. I had benefits for that, and obviously I was in college, but it took so long for that to happen and they gave me a flat. They did not want to help me, give me money, to do up my flat, so that leads to: "What else am I supposed to do?" I cannot work because if I work I will be earning too much where they will take me off benefits. If it does not work, I will be working basically just enough to pay for my rent and go to college, just about that, and there is things like cookers, washing machines, fridges and things like that that are necessities that you need, and they did not help me get that, so obviously I had to find other ways to get that. It comes back to obviously getting kicked out and leaving home early. I think that does play a big role, and when that happens to you, you feel like it rubs off and you need to get on your feet and you feel that the only person who can do that is yourself and there is no help out there for you. Like Hayley says, if you do not have the information, you do not feel you have that much decision open to you.

Mrs Cryer: You were all thrown into a situation very young when you had to start making decisions that usually much older people have to make. I was just trying to get at what help you could get to young people at that point when they are perhaps thrown out of home and they just need someone to guide them in the right direction - where to get benefits, where to get help. You have been very helpful. Thank you very much.

Q208 Chairman: Can I chip in a question. I heard a couple of my colleagues over there asking it. There is a service called Connexions which is supposed to provide support for 14 to 19 year olds. Did any of you---

Bianca: I have been there. I do not want to put it down, because in some sense it does work for certain people, but basically, not being funny, but it is sort of if you cannot really access a computer, if you do not know how to use the internet or you are not that confident in speaking on the phone or something, basically they just give you the facilities to use, they do not help you, they give you that. I have been there and thinking, "There must be something more that they can tell me", and basically everything I have researched on the internet and checked up in the books, it is the same thing they are going to tell you. It is not really that much help, not homes for young people. I know they do help young people out with food shopping and that, they will get vouchers for that, Iceland and all that. I have never had experience of that, but you have to be in a serious circumstance to get that, but other than that I think Connexions is rubbish.

Q209 Mrs Cryer: I want to move on now from family to school. We have got notes about you having dropped out of school. How many of you dropped out of school through choice and how many of you were actually ejected from school, expelled from school? You were expelled, Leon.

Leon: Yes.

Q210 Mrs Cryer: Dexter?

Dexter: I dropped out.

Q211 Mrs Cryer: Hayley, did you have to leave school?

Hayley: I finished school.

Q212 Mrs Cryer: You finished school?

Hayley: Yes.

Q213 Mrs Cryer: You left when you were 17?

Hayley: College. I left home when I was 17.

Q214 Mrs Cryer: I am talking about school now. When did you leave school?

Hayley: College. Do you mean education?

Q215 Mrs Cryer: Yes.

Hayley: At 17.

Q216 Mrs Cryer: Bianca?

Bianca: I got kicked out of school, but now I am in college.

Q217 Mrs Cryer: Jason?

Jason: I got told to leave. I never got kicked out, but I was told to leave.

Q218 Mrs Cryer: You were expelled from school. What impact do you think it had on you all whether you left from choice or whether you were expelled from school as to what you did then so far as getting involved in criminal activity?

Hayley: I could say from college rather than school, I got kicked out of college and it made me feel kind of like a waste of time, because I chose to go to college, school is compulsory. I am not saying that it makes a difference whether it is school or college how you feel, but from college I felt let down because I found my way to college, I completed my first year, and the teacher threatened me towards the end of my first year saying that he is not going to let me do the second year, but because my work was a more higher standard he had to put me through and shortly after I got kicked out, a month into the course, so I felt like it was a waste of time. It was too late for me to join any other college, and I was just lost for the rest of the year. It puts your life on hold, it makes you feel frustrated and you do not know what to do - if it is really worth it or not, if it is the right thing to do - because it feels like you cannot win. It feels like you are a loser: you got kicked out; there is nothing you can do; you are just stuck.

Q219 Mrs Cryer: Did the school discuss the problems with you. Did they actually say, "Look, whatever it is about your behaviour, if it continues you are going to be expelled"?

Hayley: No.

Q220 Mrs Cryer: Did they give you a warning?

Hayley: No.

Q221 Mrs Cryer: It just came at you out of the blue, you were expelled?

Hayley: Yes.

Q222 Mrs Cryer: It is such a pity. Did that happen to anyone else?

Bianca: Yes, with me in school it did sort of happen like that. I did not have warnings. I was kicked out for fighting but it was not a fight in the school. I had previous fights in the school, but that was it. The trouble I was really getting in trouble for was fighting outside of school because it was putting on the school's reputation. The last time I got kicked out my deputy head was there and they witnessed what happened and saw that I acted in self-defence. Yet you know when you have the appeal meetings after you get excluded, my deputy head was supposed to be there but, for some reason, on this occasion she was not allowed to be there, and she was obviously going to speak up on my behalf, because obviously she knew exactly what happened, and then after that I got excluded. But then, just like Hayley was saying, it does make you feel lost, because my predicted grades was As and Bs for GCSEs. When I went in they referred me over to Centre afterwards, but I did not go to Centre afterwards, but eventually I said, all right, I am going to go. When I went to Centre they would not put me in for intermediate, they did not do intermediate, they only did foundation. That alone is stereotyping, because that means that everybody that gets kicked out of school are under-achievers and you expect them to be working at a foundation level. If you know, and you have got my records from school, that I was working on the higher level and intermediate, how are you going to put me onto foundation? That makes me think it is not worth it. I know what I am capable of. It is not that there is a choice, there is no choice. You have to be foundation; that is all you can get. I know I am worth more than that. I am not going to do it. So, obviously, I said I am not going to do it, so that makes you feel lost, and if I was not a strong person, as I am, I would have thought, "Forget it, I am staying on roads." Then afterwards, obviously, I am at college, but that again is more waste of time because you are going to college, you have not got nothing on paper, so you have got to start from the beginning, way from the beginning when you know you should be starting at the top and you know what you are capable of. My college were quite understanding, because they gave me trial places and moved me up, but not all colleges do that, because my other friends who are in the same situation as me have not got that sort of advantage that I had, and I have seen them drop out halfway because they are learning things they already know. It is just basics and that just leaves you once again with no options. How can you go to Centre and be told you cannot do nothing else but foundation. Not everybody that gets kicked out of school is an underachiever. That there is stereotyping.

Q223 Mrs Cryer: You are hoping to go to university, are you not?

Bianca: Yes, I am going to university next year.

Q224 Mrs Cryer: And Hayley you are hoping to go to university?

Hayley: Yes.

Q225 Bob Russell: We have read and heard in broad terms about home and school, but nowhere in the reports can I find if anybody has been a member of a recognised youth organisation at any time. Have any of you been members of recognised youth organisations? Indeed, are the recognised youth organisations there for young people to join?

Bianca: Well, there are things like---. I am sorry, youth clubs I think are stupid because they get so much money to run it, you see them driving beautiful cars, yet they take you to Alton Towers about four times in the summer holiday and that is end of - it is not nothing permanent, do you get what I am saying - whereas you have the X-it programme which Julia set up and that is more of an on-going process because you can start that at a young age, you can start that at an old age. They do not provide you with all the chips in the world, they have a couple of residentials, but there is more of a meaning to it. They make you see things in a different light than the residentials and that, and afterwards, as well, you are not left with nowhere to go. If you are suddenly thrown out and you was not in school, you are getting help and you are setting up plans and you have somebody beside you working towards your plans. If you are older as well you could go on to another programme called something like RAW, and after that as well they help you get employed, and afterwards you set a plan and if you really want to do that they will help you work towards that, but there are things like it is hard to get funding for those sorts of programmes.

Q226 Bob Russell: There is nothing before the X-it programme?

Bianca: Personally not that I saw that actually made a big difference.

Q227 Mrs Dean: When there were problems at school, did the school try to involve the parents in their concerns or your concerns in any of your cases?

Dexter: My parents were not around. I lived with my aunt. Obviously my aunt has her own life, she has her own kids, so she does not have time. She has time for me, but she has got her own priorities.

Q228 Mrs Dean: So you lived with your aunt and she was busy. Are there any others where parents were involved with the school? Was that because the school did not contact the parents or because your parents were not keen to get involved with the school?

Bianca: Most of the times when I grew up with the school, I do not know, they did not raise it up with my parents, but with the big issues when it did come for the parents, when all that kicked up the last time, I was not with my parents anyway, so it did not really make no difference.

Q229 Chairman: Can I follow up from that question and put a question to you all which we have rather skirted around a bit. In other sessions we have had like this we have had witnesses from organisations, black community organisations and faith organisation, and so on, who have all said that one of the problems about young people and crime is the amount of family breakdown, that lots of you in one way or another have referred to people having to leave home or fathers not being there, or something of that sort. In your experience, is trouble at home, families breaking up, part of the reasons why young people get involved in crime, or is it something that happens but is not directly associated with people going off the rails?

Dexter: Everyone has got different reasons. Some people might not even have dads, might not know their dads from when they were younger.

Q230 Chairman: Do you think that is a problem, growing up without a father?

Dexter: In some cases it is, but I have seen people raised by their mum and they have been good, so I would not say it is down to the father, it could be anything.

Leon: In some cases that is the reason why people resort to crime, because if they are not getting the love from home, they see it as the only love they can get is from the streets basically. They are not getting it anywhere else.

Q231 Chairman: I think you were making the same point earlier, Hayley, when you were talking about why people get involved in gangs and crews.

Hayley: Obviously, you are coming from home, your parents, your family, that is where you start off, where you end up, that was your foundation, so that will follow you through life and impact on the decisions you make throughout life. It is not always the main reason why, or the only reason why, sometimes it is nothing to do with the way you was brought up, you had a perfect upbringing, but something made an impact on you further on in your life, but obviously you start off from home.

Q232 Chairman: Jason?

Jason: I cannot really comment. I have lived with my parents all my life so I would not know.

Q233 Chairman: You cannot make general conclusions on this one.

Jason: No.

Q234 Mr Winnick: There is a view, I do not know whether you would agree, perhaps you would let me know, that there is a connection between the music some young people listen to and the crimes which are committed. I suppose, to some extent at least, it is a sort of reference to rap?

Bianca: No, sorry, no, no, I am going to have to jump in there. There is no way everybody can blame it on the rap. Obviously they talk about guns, whatever, but children are not stupid, youth know that that is the easy way out, they can rap. If they were following them and they went and rapped too, they are not looking at that and saying they want that. It is other people that are doing them things. I do not think in no way you can blame the rap culture for that, because people who are into rap know what the rap culture is really about and know what these guys are really and really not doing. You have got guys like 50 Cent that everybody wants to blame things on, but if you ask anybody on this table, no-one will tell you to look up to 50 Cent, if you ask anybody in Brixton no-one will tell you, but yet you see in the media that we look up to these people and we see that and want that and it really is nothing to do with the music industry at all from my perspective, from what I have seen, and in Brixton as well.

Q235 Mr Winnick: That is a very forthright answer but it is somewhat different, if I may say so, from the replies we have had from other witnesses, black people certainly who have given evidence. The point I am making by way of a question is that some of the music seems to glamorize pimps, drug dealers, robbing banks and so on and so forth, and the question therefore is: is not such music undesirable and a bad influence?

Hayley: I do not think it is.

Q236 Mr Winnick: And since I am a bit older than you, perhaps you could speak up?

Hayley: Some people that listen to rap, the image that you are talking about with all the pimps and the glamour and what not, people do want it, and the things that rappers rap about, as you said, is sometimes drug dealing and robbing banks and whatever, and some people will believe that is how they achieved what they have got and they will try to follow them and do what they have done; but there is a lot of people, the majority of people that listen to rap, a lot of things what the rappers say or what they have been through, they can relate to it because they are going through the same thing right now. When people rap a lot of the time --- 50 Cent is just out to make money. There is a lot of people, I can tell you, who are out to make money and talk rubbish, but there is a lot of people who have been through things. If you listen to people like DMX and Tupac and people, the things that they are saying, it might be horrible to listen to, you might think it is foul what they are talking about, but that is what they have been through, the same way that people do art work and people write poems, whatever. This is how they express themselves. All that anger and hate that you hear coming out in the music, imagine them keeping that within themselves, inside themselves. I think it is good that they express it and sometimes you have to sympathise with some of the rappers, thinking what they have been through and the lives they have led, and young people today can relate with some of the things that they have been through.

Q237 Mr Winnick: So you do not mind any of this sort of music. You think it is all right?

Hayley: I think it is perfectly fine.

Q238 Mr Winnick: Leon and Dexter, do you have any objections to this sort of music?

Leon: You might as well say, I do not reckon music does anything to people's minds. If you are saying it talks about bank robberies and that, you might as well say TV is the same thing as well. There is lots of guns and violence and anything on any TV channel now where kids can watch it at any time. It does mess with people's brains and kind of makes them think certain things, but obviously people have a mind of their own, so obviously they choose what they want to do, if you see what I am saying.

Q239 Mr Winnick: Dexter, the same view?

Dexter: Basically the same. Everyone has got their own mind. I do not think someone is going to follow something that is said on a CD, someone says, "Off you go, do that." I do not think they are going to do it and I do not think they are going to get influenced right now, but some people can relate to it because they have gone through it as well. It is basically the same thing.

Q240 Mr Winnick: I have to say that my son listens to the music and, as far as I know, has not descended into criminality, so you may well have a point there. Apart from music and so on, do any of you believe that young black people, as opposed to other young people, have particular reasons to get involved in crime. After all, there are white youngsters from broken homes and all kinds of related problems connected with that. Are there any particular reasons why young black people should get involved in criminality as opposed to, say, white ones?

Leon: Any colour can get into criminality, because everyone is human. Everyone gets into the same problems and has the same things. I do not see it as just black people who would get into criminality like that, if you see what I am saying.

Hayley: I agree with Leon to an extent, but there is not a lot of black role models for young black people to look up to. Like in Parliament, there is only a couple of black people, the majority of people in Parliament are white people, which is not a problem but it is the fact that young black people do not always have positive role models. There are not a lot of black teachers and not a lot of black people in higher positions---

Q241 Mr Winnick: Including MPs?

Hayley: ---to motivate black people to grow up and be something with themselves, because if the black people are not teachers, whatever, obviously what are their parents? A lot of black people's parents could be cleaners or just doing something that is not really much of a job, nothing much to look up to, and if you have not got a parent to look up to, who is the next person you look up to? If there is no teachers to look up to, there is no-one in government to look up to, you are really lost because you cannot really get higher than the government and you cannot see no-one, no reflection of yourself doing anything that makes a difference, so I do not think that black people have enough.

Bianca: I agree. Yes, there are people that will look at that and think, "There is no way I could be up there." That is what that means.

Q242 Mr Benyon: I think you probably could actually.

Bianca: There is black people that look up and think, "I could go for politics, I could deal with people." I know at the end of the day I am not going to get there because the system is not made for me. This is what black people think. As Hayley has said, there is no role model. There is, but the role models that do make it, they are more stuck up; as a black person they are more stuck up: "I have done it myself, I have made it, let us get out."

Hayley: A lot of black people that you see in high positions, they kind of talk posh. They are not the same as a black person. They are not the same as me. Whereas a rapper will talk and use the same language as I would kind of use, when you have got a black person that is in a higher position, they are talking the Queen's English and they talk posh and their noses are stuck up in the air. That is not me at all, I cannot see a reflection of myself, but there is also some racism within certain authorities which means that people of different cultures - I do not want to just say black people because people who could be racist also do not like Asian people, but it limits people to where they are going, but I think black people also fight against themselves a lot. They put themselves down or they have been put down by other people and they let that get to them, but it is up to them as well to stand up and do something with themselves, because if they do not see a black person in Parliament, then they should get up and be that black person in Parliament.

Chairman: I am going to say to the Committee, our next group of witnesses have not arrived yet, so if you do not mind staying on for a few minutes, you are being really helpful, we have got quite a few more questions we would like to ask you. If that is okay that would be great. Can I bring Margaret in.

Q243 Margaret Moran: Operation Black Vote was excellent. I can see some potential MPs here today and they do great work. A lot of us work with young black people that are interested in getting involved in politics with Operation Black Vote, so there is a quick plug. The question I want to ask is coming back; it was kind of about the music but not specifically. Last week in Luton a young black man shot three other black youths in the town centre. There is no territorial issue there; it was not on an estate. The suggestion is that there was a rave going on, a party going on, and there was something going down there which was not to do with the music itself except that all of these youths were involved in this party. Tell me what was happening there. Was there drugs?

Bianca: Were they tested for drugs?

Q244 Margaret Moran: Oh, they would have been, yes.

Bianca: Because most of these people that let off these shots, like, I am quite 90 % sure that they was taking Ecstasy that night, and that makes their mind do overtime. It is becoming a regular thing for these young black people that are high up there, these people that carry guns. It is becoming a regular thing for them to take Ecstasy. Obviously, that controls your mind at the same time as well. I am not saying that is an excuse because it is not, and then shooting up people and that, I do not think it was anything deliberate. I just think it was, "This is me and I can do it. Everybody look what I can do". It is just they are all there trying to build up their status and name once again, not that it was worth it.

Q245 Mrs Dean: I wonder if any of you would like to say what you think are the most important things we can do to stop young people getting involved in crime in the first place.

Hayley: You need more things for young people to do, more activities, educational activities, more things that they enjoy and that. A lot of people enjoy - boys, constructions and plumbing, things that are educational but you do not always get in school, and also do not stop at construction and plumbing. Give them, like, MPs and politicians, teach them about that, give them more information about --- yeah, more options, more higher options as well, not just garden nursery and construction. We can do better than that. We need more stuff, educational but informal ways of doing it out of school times. There should be more tolerance in schools to keep people in schools, more work within schools. Young people work better with young people, so more young people need to be working with young people, like, the in-betweens, like mentors and youth workers. They need to be more involved in this, there need to be more youth clubs. Education needs to be much better because education is just lacking as well. We need to find different ways of working with young people. In some primary schools, I saw it on the news the other day, they are working outdoors, doing science lessons and that out of doors, and it helps. Grades and that have improved because they are thinking how to work with the young people, how to get the better grades rather than just doing everything in the usual way.

Q246 Mrs Dean: Dexter, have you got any ideas?

Dexter: Yes. I think you need more X-it programmes.

Q247 Mrs Dean: You are giving it a plug, are you not? Leon, have you got any ideas?

Leon: Yes. I would just say more youth clubs in the estates and more things for young people to do, basically, because there is just nothing for young people to do out of school hours.

Q248 Mrs Dean: Bianca?

Bianca: If you have a programme that shows that it works and, to take as an example, in Lambeth, you can show them statistics that people that are involved in the programme, in X-it, and they had an officer say that all these people either have an urge for offending or have offended and when they started this programme they did not offend and after this programme none of them have gone on to re-offend. That shows you it is something that is working. It is something that works and if you can show Lambeth that that is something that has worked, why would you cut funding for it? It is hard to get funding for it. It works but there is just no funding for it so it is not going to be able to carry on. I just think funding should be up there to be used more.

Q249 Mrs Dean: Jason, have you got anything to add to that?

Jason: I just agree with Bianca, more funding and there needs to be more of that because basically we go our ways to make our money which is obviously going to be removed. I do not think it is being funded properly.

Q250 Mrs Dean: So more things to do for young people to stop them getting into crime and X-it to get them out. Do any of you want to add to that and say what made a big difference to you?

Bianca: Housing, and 80 % of the jobs as well, and options and that, because obviously options lead on to jobs, but having good housing as well. You cannot get a job and be stable if you are not living in a stable environment, so housing needs to be sorted out because there is too much young children that are out there that are homeless. If they are going to apply for a job and they have got to send a letter back, you are looking at five different addresses where any letter can be sent because they are sleeping at friends, and of course they do not want to go into social services and they can't get nowhere till they are 16, and even that now is cutting as well because so much people are trying to pull it. I think there needs to be more support within housing and young people. I do not know if there should be a more formal structure to go through but I still think there should be more help with housing because young people are not getting help with their housing any more and there is too much young people homeless, but no-one don't think they are homeless because they are staying around, and that there is just not stable. I mean, you cannot get nowhere if you are not stable.

Hayley: And support in prisons as well. Young people in prisons, they need a lot of support and also when they come out they need to have something that they can go to. I know they have the YOT but everyone has bad opinions about the YOT. When they come back to it there is always something negative to say, but no-one seems to do nothing about it, no-one wants to change nothing, they do not want to listen to young people's views and that. Within the prisons and especially when they come out they need a lot of support from housing, from education, from jobs. People need to be more open-minded because not everyone that goes to prison was always guilty of the crime and sometimes they have had time to think about it and want to make a change but the options ain't out there for them to be able to make that change, so that needs to be thought about.

Q251 Mr Benyon: Crime is actually a male problem. There is way more percentage of young males across all ethnicities being convicted than there are women. Why do you think this is?

Hayley: Because women are smarter than men.

Q252 Mr Benyon: I thought you might say that!

Hayley: Men just get caught. Men seem to relax more. After a while they just tend to relax and think that they will not get caught.

Bianca: And women still stay on the ball because there is a lot of women that do as much crime but they do not get caught.

Hayley: With women as well we have less to prove than a male has to prove. A male feels he has got something to prove, so he is more willing to go a bit further, the extra mile to go and do something and then go and brag about it.

Q253 Chairman: What about the men?

Dexter: I think the men are smarter than women.

Q254 Chairman: But, just to pursue Richard's point, why do you think it is that the men get more involved in crime? Is it that they feel they need to prove themselves? You were talking earlier there about status.

Leon: They need to prove themselves. It is a status thing.

Q255 Mr Benyon: What difference do you think the threat of being caught by the police makes? I am not specifically directing this at any of you, but in your experience and your mates' and people you know, what difference does being caught by the police and going to prison make? Dexter, you have been to prison. Is it a deterrent?

Dexter: For me basically I changed before I went to prison in that I done the X-it programme before I went to prison. Within the X-it programme I did not offend, so basically it showed that I was changing, but, like, when I went to court, even though I had a police officer on my side and Judah(?) and other people saying I am getting a job and I have stopped offending, they still sent me down, so I am thinking, "I am going to prison now". It had no effect on me. It was just like, "There is nothing there to tell you to stop doing crime". It is the pulls(?) in life basically. It is the pulls in life.

Leon: It is like not a youth club now but like a big youth club of criminals.

Hayley: And they just meet each other, discuss with each other what they are going to do when they come out. They just make more links. That is why prison is just so stupid. It is a stupid idea.

Mr Benyon: But it must be right for some of you. Come on.

Q256 Chairman: Jason, what do you say?

Jason: Vulnerable guys, they find it easy to go there and they do not want to back there, but when you have come through stuff and you go there it is just that. You go there, you are around the same people for how long your sentence is, and the only thing you are resorting to is connections, so I think, "If I link him when I get out of here what can we do to make money?", and that is how it is. So basically you are going to find other ways to meet them or you go in for something and then you find more business partners. Everyone that is in jail, that is someone with a background which is around drugs and guns and all that. You just find more connections, innit, so it is pointless getting a job.

Q257 Mr Benyon: So what would be a better deterrent than prison?

Hayley: Not referring them to courses but giving them options of courses that are proven to benefit people that are doing criminal activity, like the X-it programme changes these two.

Q258 Mr Benyon: I have got to get re-elected next time and if I was to go in front of the electorate and say if somebody commits a robbery they should be put on a course --- I do think you are right: they should be put on a course but there should be some element of punishment.

Leon: I say jail should just be not more stricter but something where it will help them make somebody go to jail and sit down and think, "I have done wrong. I do not want to be back in here", but people nowadays will think, no, they go to jail and see their friends and be like, "Oh, how are you? All right, mate?", and then they will be, like, "Yeah, let's talk", and that is what I am saying, that it needs to be more effective.

Bianca: Not all jails are like that. When you go through the jail system, obviously, if you get kicked out of jail and kicked out of jail you move further and further away, and as black people you move further and further away and there are things called racist prisons, as I quote. In places like Feltham, that is a holiday camp. Everybody goes in there, comes out, "Yeah, what man went jail there?". It is all fun, and they come back out to do the same thing. It is fun.

Chairman: We are going to Feltham in a few weeks' time to meet some of the people who are there and we will carry on this discussion with them there and think about prison and how it is working. Our next set of witnesses are here so we need to end this session. Can I thank you very much indeed. You have been really helpful. Sorry if we intruded in some of the personal areas due to a misunderstanding, but you have been very helpful indeed and we are grateful to you for your time. Thanks a lot.