Levelling the Playing Field researcher, Morgan Mitchell, assesses some of the findings in the Centre for Justice Innovation’s report, 'Equal diversion? Racial Disproportionality in Youth Diversion' . She says its data is highly useful for LtPF delivery partners needing an evidence base for their programmes working with ethnically diverse children.

The Centre for Justice Innovation report looks at “youth diversion” – a process which gives young people who are suspected of committing an offence the opportunity to access community-based interventions rather than formal criminal justice processing. Ultimately, it avoids prosecution, among other formal courts orders, that gives young people a potentially damaging criminal record.

The report specifically addresses disproportionality and bias in how young people are treated within the criminal justice system.

Firstly, it tells us that only just over half of the Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) confirmed collecting demographic data from the young people who had access to diversion interventions, making it difficult to ascertain how such practices are being distributed around the country. What is clear, however, is that disproportionate access to diversion may play an important role in intensifying the racial disproportionality that exists within the criminal justice system already.

Notably, this disproportionality is said to be driven by unconscious bias among those working in YOTs. The perception YOT practitioners had of young people from ethnically diverse groups influences how they then screen these communities of young people – leading to them being considered higher risk to their white counterparts and therefore less likely to be offered access to diversion.

As such, misinterpretations of the behaviour of young people from ethnically diverse communities operate to their detriment. This is also demonstrated in the fact that within juvenile court systems “in every legal category, a larger percentage of black offenders are categorised as “high risk” than white offenders.” (Steen et al.)

This research was conducted via semi-structed interviews on Zoom with two different YOTS, including police, youth offending team (YOT) staff, defence lawyers, young people and parents/guardians.

Questions focused specifically on practitioner perceptions around the aim of diversion practices, the attitudes and behaviours of young people and how this relates to the diversion provisions, the role of race and ethnicity in gaining access to diversion interventions, the perception of young people and their families around the police, solicitors and staff on YOTs and how their experiences with these groups could have been influenced by their ethnicity.

Information gained from the Centre for Crime Innovation’s literature review and interviews led to a call to focus on the following as promising practices in fighting against disproportionality within the criminal justice system, looking at diversion specifically:

• Diversifying the workforce so that those working in YOTs understand the needs and cultures of the ethnically diverse communities they serve.
• Creating multi-agency decision-making and oversight groups that contain professionals such as social workers and other relevant agencies that are able to tend to young people’s needs at possible points of arrest.
• Enhancing engagement in ethnically diverse communities so that flexible and creative solutions are offered as part of a controlled approach that focuses on realising young people’s potential.
  Creating culture-specific programmes of diversion.
• Offering diversion training for YOTs and solicitors that focus on culture-specific programming – empowering staff to undertake such practices.
• Creating an evidence-based eligibility criteria for diversion interventions that are robust against bias.

References:

Steen, S., Bond, C.E.W., Bridges, G.S., and Kubrin, C.E. Explaining Assessments of Future Risk. Race and Attributions of Juvenile Offenders in Presentencing Reports. In Our Children, Their Children: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Differences in American Juvenile Justice, 245–269, edited by Darnell F. Hawkins, D.F. and Kempf-Leonard, K. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.