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

Let’s get it rightSUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS OFTHE 1998 s95 REPORTnnnOf the one million PACE s1 stop andsearches carried out in 1997/98, 11%were of black people, compared to 2%in the general population over the ageof 10; and 5% were of Asians, comparedto 3% in the general population.Of the two million arrests, 7% wereblack, and 4% were Asian. Cautioning,however, was used less frequently forblack people than for white and ‘other’ethnic groups.61% of the adult black male prisonpopulation was serving sentences ofover four years, compared to 59% ofAsians and 47% of white prisoners.Among women, 58% of black prisonerswere serving over four years comparedto 31% of white prisoners.In 1997 the Association of Chief Probation Officers(ACOP) conducted a survey of all areas to find out theextent to which monitoring was being used. Fifty oneservices took part. Although most areas were collectingmonitoring information for transmission to the HomeOffice, fewer were making use of the informationlocally in their casework with offenders. The more thatthe monitoring results were analysed and incorporatedinto team targets, the more that improvements topractice developed. The ACOP survey illustrates aproblem faced now by many criminal justice agencies –how to use the information collected by an ethnicmonitoring system to improve service delivery andquality.The CPS has worked since 1995 with the police tomonitor the way in which cases of racial incidents arehandled and taken to court. In 1998 it published asecond report on this monitoring, which is described inmore detail in chapter 8 on victims of crime.Prisons are required to monitor their populations,allocation of accommodation, employment, educationand training, adjudications, temporary release,segregation and requests/complaints.nn9% of the 1,230 murder victims overtwo years, from 1996 to 1998, wereblack, 6% were Asian and 3% were of‘other’ ethnic origin.There was a 6% increase in the numberof racial incidents recorded by thepolice, from 13,151 in 1996/97 to13,878.The CPS intends to introduce monitoring of caseworkdecisions when its current reorganisation is completeand information technology systems are in place.Home Office pilot studies - which look at ‘tracking’cases as they move through the criminal justice system- are under way in 11 police force areas.But as yet, there is no systematic ethnic monitoring ofsentencing.The real importance of s95 is becomingmore clearly apparent. It is now possibleto start looking at trends in, for example,stop and search and arrests; together withother recent research, such as the HomeOffice study above, the results confirmlong-standing concerns about thedisproportionate impact of the criminaljustice system on minority groups – asvictims- of crime and employees as well assuspects and offenders.In 1997 the Lord Chancellor’s Department published areport on ethnic monitoring of defendants appearing atLeicester magistrates’ courts in 1995. It recorded theethnicity, gender, type of offence and sentences passedon 20,031 people appearing at both adult and youthcourts. The small numbers of black defendants and thehigh level of missing data on ethnicity means that theresults need to be treated with caution. But the realvalue of the exercise lay in testing out procedures formonitoring at magistrates’ courts. Several practicalrecommendations are made about the process and howit can be improved, which should be of value for othercourts considering similar monitoring.16