Differential treatment in the youth justice system - Equality and ...

PASSING THROUGH THE YOUTH JUSTICE SYSTEM5.5 SummaryThis chapter has provided evidence of the disproportionality of sentences received byyoung people of different ethnic groups. It shows that this unequal representation isstill apparent at some stages of the youth justice system, even when characteristicsof the case, such as type of offence and seriousness, and the YOT area in whichthe young person is dealt with are controlled for. This indicates that certain stagesof the youth justice system may be discriminatory against ethnic minorities. Mixedrace boys and girls had higher chances of being prosecuted at court than given areprimand or final warning, and of receiving a community sentence rather than afirst-tier penalty when compared to whites. The opposite was true for Asian girls,who were less likely to be prosecuted at court. Black and Asian young people hada higher chance of being remanded into secure accommodation. Using a smallersample of individuals for whom Asset data was available, the findings for Asianswere no longer significant at the 5% level, but mixed race young people were alsofound, with blacks, to be more likely to be remanded than white young people. Atcourt, black boys had a higher chance of having their case dismissed than receivinga sentence compared with white boys.Not all modelled stages showed differences between ethnic minority and white youngpeople. No ethnic group was significantly more likely than another to receive areferral order rather than another first-tier penalty, or to receive a custodial sentencerather than another court sentence. However, the finding of non-significant ethnicdifferences for receiving a custodial sentence may be explained by two factors: theyoung person being remanded in custody, which was shown to be higher for ethnicminorities than whites, and the greater likelihood in certain areas that a young personwould be sent to custody. The important point to convey here is that there appear tobe some systematic differences in the sentences received by different ethnic groups– but that these differences reflect either the effects of earlier decisions in the youthjustice process, or geographical variations in sentencing.Area B was used as the base for comparisons between areas. In general, models forall types of sentencing found differences in areas when compared to Area B. Area Bwas shown earlier to have the highest proportion of cases that were given a pre-courtdisposal and so it could be argued that Area B is a more lenient area and somewhat88