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

Let’s get it rightas Middlesex Probation Service has done with theBreakFree Project in Tottenham.Promoting community-based sentences forminority offendersProbation services need to ensure that they can offer arange of community-based sentences for minorityoffenders that will help to prevent sentencers imposingcustodial sentences. Programmes should, for example,cater for a diverse caseload, as shown by the earlierexamples. Providing the same service for all thosesupervised is not necessarily the same as providing afair service, as different people have different needs.ResettlementProbation services should work closely with prisons toprovide resettlement services for minority prisoners intheir areas – this is also mentioned below.Work with perpetrators of racially motivatedoffencesIn 1998 ACOP published ‘From Murmur to Murder’, aresource pack for working with racist offenders. It wasdeveloped by probation practitioners in the MidlandsProbation Training Consortium and John Kay,Assistant Chief Probation Officer for Nottinghamshire,under the auspices of the CRE Leadership Challenge.It sets out appropriate programmes of supervision fordealing with racist offenders aimed at reducing thistype of behaviour, and is suitable for use in all areas ofthe country.As other agencies begin to implement the StephenLawrence Inquiry Report recommendations, it isimportant that the probation service complements thiswork by using ‘From Murmur to Murder’ to deal withoffenders.(using the earlier terminology of that time) as WestIndian, Guyanese or African, rising to 10% in 1989, 11%in 1994 and 12% in 1997. The figures for black women inprison have risen from 12% in 1985, 17% in 1987, fallingto 10% in 1989 but rising to 22% in 1990; in 1997 thepercentage was 19%. The proportion of Asian men andwomen has stayed fairly level throughout at about 3% and1-2% respectively.A large proportion of women in prison are from outsidethe UK, many imprisoned for importing drugs. Whenforeign nationals are excluded from the figures, in 199710% of the men in prison and 13% of women were black,compared to 2% of those aged over 10 in the generalpopulation.Convicted black prisoners also consistently over thisperiod have been given longer sentences than whiteprisoners.In some London prisons, almost half of those held onremand are from minority groups.This high proportion of minority prisoners has implicationsfor the Prison Service which have long been recognisedand acted upon. The Service has a long history of work onrace relations, issuing its first instruction to governors aslong ago as 1983. Ten years later a detailed andcomprehensive manual was produced covering all aspectsof prison life. This manual was streamlined and reissued asa new Prison Service order on Race Relations in 1997.Each prison must appoint a race relations liaison officer,and a race relations management team which must meetregularly and review policy and practice. The orderspecifies standards for what must be provided in terms ofdiet, goods in the canteen, access to religious services,material in libraries, access to accommodation and towork. A comprehensive system of ethnic monitoring isalso specified.The Prison ServiceThe ethnic origins of prisoners have been measured since1985, and although different categories have been usedover time, meaning that not all figures are directlycomparable, it is clear that black people in particular haveconsistently been over-represented in the prisonpopulation throughout this period, compared to theirproportion in the general population.In 1985, 8% of the male prison population was classifiedDespite top level commitment and the detailed racerelations manual, there have consistently been problemsputting the policy into practice, identified by NACRO inits local work with prisons, by the CRE, and, crucially, byrace relations liaison officers and other prison staffthemselves.With the sharp rise in the prison population after 1994,severe budget cuts and a new emphasis on security afterhigh profile escapes from Whitemoor and Parkhurst, itwas perhaps inevitable that race relations would fall down42