MORE THAN six in ten children remanded in London police custody in February 2020 this year were Black, new data has revealed.
Being on remand is when you are charged with an offence, and are waiting for your court hearing.
Transform Justice, working alongside the Howard League for Penal Reform submitted Freedom of Information (FOI) requests which uncovered the shocking statistics.
In March 2020, Black children made up the highest numbers of children in Cookham Wood Youth Offenders Institute and Feltham Youth Offenders Institute.
Nationally, Black children made up around 30% of children on remand.
Director of Transform Justice, Penelope Gibbs said: “This huge racial disparity in the treatment of London’s children cannot be explained away. Remand separates children from their families and disrupts their education, and yet most children who are remanded do not go on to receive a prison sentence.
“If the government is serious about combatting racism they need to tackle this discrimination at the sharp end of the criminal justice system and reduce the disproportionate use of remand.”
Data released last week by the Howard League shows that for the past nine years, the number of children being arrested had been decreasing overall – however, a small 2% increase in the number of arrests has been observed in the last year.
Black children have not benefitted from this fall in arrest numbers.
Government data suggests that Black children are four times more likely to be arrested than white children, and in September 2020, 51% of children held in youth custody were from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.
The Howard League asks police forces to record the age, gender and ethnicity of arrested children to tackle this overrepresentation, however the data is not being collected across all police forces.
In fact, the report suggests that police race recording is getting worse, not better.
Some police forces are arresting children who were victims of trafficking or county lines.
This is in part because of poorly trained and inexperienced police officers – which could become a bigger issue as there is a current national drive to hire 20,000 more police officers.
Sometimes police are arresting children in a bid to keep them safe. However, on other occasions, they are arresting children because they do not recognise them as victims.
Thus, vulnerable children can be re-traumatised and lose their faith in the policing.
Children in residential care are also arrested disproportionately.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We are working across government to tackle the deep-rooted causes of BAME children’s over-representation in the criminal justice system.
“This includes reviewing the disproportionate use of remand, along with improving legal advice and developing schemes for early intervention.”
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England’s Treasury spends £300m annually incarcerating African-heritage youth in Prisons and Young Offenders institutions.
£300m is a shockingly high figure.
In 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May was so shocked at the £300m cost to the Treasury; and the disparity of African-heritage youth being held on remand, that Prime Minister May wondered if African-heritage parents actually cared about their children?
Prime Minister May wondered why there was no protest; petitions, or political lobbying demanding Parliamentary action to end the shocking percentage of African heritage youth in Young Offenders Institutions; and to correct the disparity held on remand or expelled from schools: along with the shocking unemployment rates for African-heritage graduates?
African-heritage parents tolerate their children being expelled from schools.
African-heritage parents tolerate their children drifting into knife; gun and gang delinquency.
Many African-heritage parents work as individuals to correct the skin-colour disparities but have not created a political lobby.
However, as a collective, African-heritage men and women simply do not trust each other sufficiently to act as a organised collective to address the disparities that caused the Treasury to spend £300m on incarcerating our youth;
or with correcting the disparity of our youth being automatically denied Bail,
or with correct the disparity of our pupils being expelled from schools,
or with finding solutions to the knife; gun and gang delinquency that has already claimed the lives over 250 African-heritage youths since 2014.
A footballing reference neatly sums up what is wrong with England’s African-heritage people.
African and African-Caribbean Footballer’s skills are globally recognised.
African and African-Caribbean football players earn tremendous fortunes whilst playing in the European; English, American and even the Asian Football Premier Leagues.
However, and surprisingly, the national football teams of Africa and Caribbean nations are mediocre at best.
They are eliminated before the World Cup Quarter finals; and they are not seen as serious opposition for the top European Football Clubs: in which many African-heritage players are dominant.
The lesson is clear for all to see.
As individuals African-heritage footballers are skilful and dynamic.
African-heritage men and women just do not work well as a collective.
As an organised collective, even our talented and skilful footballers become second-rate and unable to offer any serious difficulties to the Football Teams of Europe.
I could name check every one of the African-Caribbean heritage men and women who were the leading public intelligentsia following the widespread 1981 riots in Liverpool; Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, and Brixton who became high profile men and women in the Labour Party and Sir Tony Blair’s Political Left.
Some were given safe Labour seats; some were given Peerages in the House of Lords, some were given public jobs at the Commission for Racial Equality, and the Commonwealth Institute and others were given Ambassadorial positions.
In short, they have been offered wealth; social status and Public Office.
They have chosen to glory in their wealth; status and Public Office in exchange for totally abandoning the “rioting” Caribbean people whose rioting was the platform they used to gain Public Office; Public attention and Public financial rewards.
I cannot name a single African or African-Caribbean heritage man or woman in English public life today that I could sincerely and wholeheartedly say has used their elevated public profile to assist; to galvanise, to offer the leadership and protection that Her Majesty’s African-heritage Subjects desperately require.
However, they have abandoned the Caribbean-heritage people whose “rioting” and demand to end the skin-colour injustice that had damaged irredeemably Caribbean people’s English lives during the 1970s and 80s.
England’s African-heritage men and women have been abandoned by our intelligentsia. This is the reason Prime Minister May and Voice Readers why there is no organised protest; petitions or political lobbying on behalf the Her Majesty’s African Heritage youth; who are routinely expelled from school in largely Labour control Councils; and African-heritage youth are denied Bail, costing the Treasury £300m annually to incarcerate.