The recent report “Racial Disproportionality in the Youth Justice System (YJS)” from MetroPolis, the University of Bedfordshire, and Manchester Metropolitan University makes for sobering reading. Despite years of policy commitments, the harsh reality is this: ethnically diverse children, especially Black and Mixed Heritage children, continue to be over-policed, unfairly penalised, and systematically failed by diversion and education systems designed to support them.
Key Findings:
- Racial disparities are growing, not shrinking. Despite an overall decline in youth convictions since 2013, 52% of children in custody in 2022 were from ethnically diverse backgrounds, up from 32% in 2012.
- Black children are disproportionately criminalised. They represent just 6% of the youth population but 11% of all cautions/sentences, 14% of convictions, and 20% of custodial sentences.
- Police-led decisions fuel inequality. When police alone make decisions, without youth justice professionals or community voices, disparity increases. Multi-agency panels were proven to reduce racial disproportionality.
- Education failures contribute to criminalisation. Most children interviewed had unidentified Special Educational Needs (SEND), were excluded from school, and had experienced racism in education.
- Systemic trauma is widespread. Children’s lives were marked by domestic violence, bereavement, poverty, and discrimination, yet the system too often responds with punishment, not support.
Why This Matters for Ethnically Diverse Communities:
This is not just a policy issue, it is a community emergency. Our children are being filtered through a system that sees them not as young people in need of care, but as threats to be managed. Despite being repeatedly told to “stay in school, stay out of trouble,” they are failed at every step, excluded without support, policed without fairness, and punished without justice.
We must no longer accept this as inevitable.
Urgent Action Points for Ethnically Diverse Communities:
- Demand Transparency and Accountability from Local Police and Youth Offending Teams.
- Attend local police scrutiny panels.
- Push for accurate ethnicity data recording and the use of Outcome 22, which allows children to access support without criminalisation.
- Challenge School Exclusions and Push for Early SEND Assessments.
- Join or support school governing bodies to challenge disproportionate exclusions.
- Insist schools assess for SEND before they exclude.
- Support Youth Work and Culturally Competent Services.
- Advocate for long-term funding for youth workers, not just short-term projects.
- Promote community-led diversion programmes that recognise cultural identity and trauma.
- Co-produce Change with Local Decision-Makers.
- Demand representation on Joint Decision-Making Panels and Youth Justice Boards.
- Push for restorative justice models rooted in equity, not surveillance.
- Educate, Mobilise, and Speak Out.
- Share this report in churches, mosques, youth clubs, and parent networks.
- Encourage young people to know their rights during police interaction.
- Campaign for national policy change—starting with the adoption of Outcome 22 across all forces.
Final Word:
As David Lammy warned in 2017, the Youth Justice System remains the “biggest concern” in terms of racial injustice. Eight years later, our children are still paying the price. We owe it to them, and ourselves, not to wait for change, but to lead it.
Let’s turn disproportionality into determination. Let’s stand together and act.