Let's get it right: race and justice 2000 - Nacro

The NACRO Race and Criminal Justice Unit was createdin 1993 to work with inter-agency groups at local level. Itis Home Office funded. Four local inter-agency groupswere established, to mirror the national committee andwhose members would have the authority to implementthe national policy recommendations in their areas andorganisations.The Inner London RIAC was chaired by Sylvia Denman,OBE, a lawyer and a former member of the CriminalJustice Consultative Council. In 1996 this committeeexpanded to cover Greater London. It continues to meet,now chaired by John Walters, Chief Probation Officer inMiddlesex. It is about to publish an action plan for workover the coming year, taking into account recent majordevelopments such as the Stephen Lawrence InquiryReport.The Leeds committee was also formed in 1993. Itpublished an interim report in 1995 and then expanded tobecome the West Yorkshire Race Advisory Group. It ischaired by the Chief Probation Officer for West Yorkshire,Anne Mace. The Surrey committee continued until 1998,chaired by David Allonby OBE, of the Central ProbationCouncil. The fourth local committee, in Leicester, met forthree years, chaired by the Rt Rev Tom Butler, (then)Bishop of Leicester. It also produced a report, and linksmade with the Race and Criminal Justice Unit aremaintained.In 1996, the Unit was given a new remit: to work moredirectly with the 23 Area Criminal Justice LiaisonCommittees (ACJLCs) to help them to take forward the50 recommendations in the 1993 Criminal JusticeConsultative Council report on race and criminal justice –described in more detail in the next chapter.The Unit is working with the Area Committees inMerseyside, Greater Manchester, SouthYorkshire/Humberside, West Midlands, South and SouthWest Wales, Avon and Somerset, Devon and Cornwall,Kent and East and West Sussex, Thames Valley, andHertfordshire and Bedfordshire. In addition, the NACROcommittees in London and West Yorkshire act in anadvisory capacity to their respective Area Committees.training, ethnic monitoring, and community links. Basedon this and on discussions in the area, an action plan –with a time limit for achieving it – is drawn up. Someactivities involve inter-agency work, and some aretargetted at particular agencies. In some areas smaller subgroupshave been formed to implement the action plansand report back to the full committee. Where possible, theUnit helps local agencies with particular aspects of thework and offers general advice and consultation on policyimplementation.This work at Area Committee level has helped the Unit tobuild up a good picture of what is being done in terms ofrace policy in major cities with large minoritycommunities and also, importantly, in rural areas withsmall and often isolated minority populations which areoften at particular risk of racial harassment.The Race and Criminal Justice Unit has delivered tailormadetraining to magistrates, magistrates’ courts’ staff andCrown Court staff; to the Crown Prosecution Service inLondon (which was then adopted nationally by the CPS),for probation hostel staff, prison boards of visitors, and ina local prison for prison officers. It produced an EqualTreatment Training pack for lay magistrates,commissioned by the Judicial Studies Board EqualTreatment Advisory Committee. The Unit also conductedan evaluation of an experiment on stop and search inTottenham, commissioned by the Haringey Communityand Police Consultative Committee.This range of work at national and local level forms abasis for much of the analysis in this report. Observationsabout progress and new areas to be tackled are stronglyrooted in this practical work with criminal justiceagencies around the country. Examples of good practicefrom local Area Committee work are also included.Because this work is intended to be tailor-made to fitlocal circumstances, it has taken a different shape in eachregion. As a general rule, the first step is to conduct anaudit of current work on race issues. This includesemployment practices, services to local communities,10