24 October 2013
A new independent initiative, backed by the Ministry of Justice, has been set up to review the outcomes and over-representation of young BAME men throughout the criminal justice process. The review, ‘Improving outcomes for Muslim and African/Caribbean young male offenders – An Independent Review led by Baroness Young of Hornsey’, will report initially in December 2013 and again in autumn 2014.
In March 2013, the Black Training and Enterprise Group (BTEG), in partnership with Clinks and chaired by Baroness Young of Hornsey, held a roundtable meeting in Westminster to discuss how we can better address the challenge of improving outcomes for Black Asian and Minority Ethnic offenders, through the commissioning process particularly within the context of the huge changes happening across the offender management system.
The roundtable was attended by a diverse group of leaders from relevant fields:
- Senior officials from the Ministry of Justice
- Representatives from the Prison and Probation Services
- Senior staff from charitable foundations
- Former service users
- Leaders from BAME led community organisations
- Chief Officers from large national charities
- Directors from private sector providers
- Academics and researchers
The full report from the roundtable is available at the link below:
Following the roundtable Jeremy Crook, Director of BTEG, Clive Martin Director of Clinks and Baroness Young met with Secretary of State for Justice, Chris Grayling MP, to seek his support for the roundtable’s principle recommendation: To establish a time-limited Task Group to investigate further how particularly the Transforming Rehabilitation process can deliver improved outcomes for BAME offenders.
Mr Grayling gave his support for the Task Group to look specifically at delivering improved outcomes for Muslim and African/Caribbean young adult male offenders (18-24 year olds.) The Task Group is being supported by Clinks and BTEG and chaired by Baroness Young. It held its first meeting on 21 October and will produce an interim paper with recommendations for the Secretary of State before the end of 2013, followed by a final report in autumn 2014.
The Transition to Adulthood Alliance (T2A), convened by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, will share the breadth of experience from its collective membership into the review. If you have any examples of best practice or relevant research that the review may find useful please forward them to Clare Hayes at Clinks [email protected]