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

Let’s get it rightCHAPTER7After sentence:prison andprobationservicesThe probation serviceThere are at present 54 probation services in England andWales. They are – among many other duties - responsiblefor preparing reports to court before sentence of anoffender, and supervising those given communitypunishments rather than custodial sentences.In 1997, Home Office figures show that 7% of thosecommencing probation orders, 10% of those commencingcommunity service orders and 10% commencingcombination orders were from minority groups. 10% ofpre-sentence reports were prepared on minoritydefendants. Home Office figures also suggest that blackpeople were two to three times more likely than whitepeople or people from other ethnic groups to start acriminal supervision order.Black people are therefore over-represented as offendersin probation caseloads but not to the same extent as theyare, for example, in police stop and search figures or inthe prison population (see below).The Hood research mentioned in chapter 4 looked at noncustodialsentences awarded in the Crown Courts. It foundthat judges were more likely to choose a ‘high tariff’alternative to custody for black defendants than for whites;black adult males were dealt with at a higher point in thescale of punishment than were similar white offenders.Neither African Caribbean nor Asian defendants wereplaced on probation as often as white defendants. Partly,the Hood research said, this was due to probation officersless readily recommending probation (they recommendedprobation for 26% of white defendants compared to 16%of black and 9% of Asian defendants). Fewer blackdefendants had social inquiry reports (as pre-sentencereports were then called). In addition:‘Those black adults who were recommended forprobation were still less likely to receive it thanwhites and more likely, if they did not go toprison, to get instead a more severe sentence:either a CSO or a suspended term ofimprisonment. The same was true forrecommendations for a community service order:substantially more blacks got instead a suspendedsentence.’Hood observed:‘It is widely feared that this “up-tariffing” as it has40