Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Baroness Brinton

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, Amendments 228A and 228B would introduce ethnic monitoring into the youth criminal justice system for Gypsy, Traveller and Roma children and young people.

The case for the amendments is simple. Young Gypsies and Travellers are widely acknowledged as being hugely overrepresented across the entire youth justice system. They have some of the very worst experiences in custody and considerably greater care needs. Yet the youth justice system still uses ethnic monitoring systems based on the 2001 census and therefore Gypsies and Travellers do not appear in the official data. I will touch briefly on why ethnic monitoring is important, particularly in education and in addressing the specific needs of Gypsies and Travellers.

The Government have rightly placed great emphasis on the need to improve the education provided for prisoners, particularly those in the youth justice system. Yet the lack of official data means that the educational needs of young Gypsies and Travellers are ignored without even being addressed. The lack of targeted education interventions is particularly acute in the youth criminal justice system. The Irish Chaplaincy’s research, Voices Unheard, found that 52% of young Irish Travellers required basic educational intervention. In fact, despite investigations from the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman and reports such as Children in Custody consistently revealing that Gypsies and Travellers have lower levels of literacy and are far less likely to understand written English, few to no steps have been taken to address this inequality.

Unfortunately, Gypsies and Travellers continue to experience marginalisation and discrimination in everyday life. Naturally, this negative experience means that they are more likely to distrust authority and far less likely to request help when they need it in prison. Low literacy and being fearful of requesting help directly contribute to Gypsies and Travellers having worse experiences in custody. They find it harder, primarily due to literacy issues, to make applications, to get a prison job or to be involved in purposeful activity while serving their sentences. This is not because of idleness or out of personal choice but because they cannot navigate the system.

There is a real willingness among Gypsies and Travellers to seek education in prison. A Children in Custody report found that 89% of Gypsy, Traveller and Roma young people thought that education in secure training centres would help them when they left. That is compared to just 66% of young people. That desire to learn can be confirmed with organisations such as the Traveller Movement and the Irish Chaplaincy, which regularly work with Gypsy and Traveller children.

However, these children are being failed because they are not seen as a priority. Without official data, the various facilities do not feel any pressure to address the unjustifiable differences in the outcomes for Gypsy and Traveller young people in prison compared with other young people because the absence of data means that these differences in outcomes cannot be fully revealed.

The latest Children in Custody report also revealed that Gypsies, Travellers and Roma in both young offender institutions and secure training centres were significantly more likely to consider themselves to have a disability. In addition, Gypsy, Traveller and Roma children in secure training centres were far more likely to report having unmet health needs. The health and education needs of Gypsy and Traveller children are simply not being addressed in the current system.

Official, reliable and consistent data are integral to ensuring that these children’s needs are being met. There is nothing like having to answer specific questions on a particular group to focus the minds of those delivering a service. The inclusion of Gypsies and Travellers in ethnicity monitoring in youth justice is integral to highlighting and addressing differences in outcomes and, most importantly, in ensuring that these children are provided with a better chance of successful resettlement. I beg to move.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, I add my support to the powerful arguments that have been put before the Committee today by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in her excellent speech. Her amendment would include Gypsy and Irish Travellers in the ethnic monitoring systems used in youth justice. The argument for ethnic inclusion was put best by the then Commission for Racial Equality, which likened having an equality policy without ethnic monitoring to,

“aiming for good financial management without keeping financial records”.

Evidence has long suggested that Gypsies and Travellers suffer worse health outcomes, and are at more risk of suicide, than other ethnic groups. Research suggests that they are three times more likely to suffer from anxiety and over twice as likely to be depressed. This is consistent with findings by HM Inspectorate of Prisons, which has found similarly high levels of mental health issues experienced by Travellers and Gypsies in prison, with them also being twice as likely to experience mental health problems compared to other prisoners. As is common with most ethnic minorities, Gypsies and Travellers find it difficult to open up to people outside their community and are therefore far less likely to report issues to prison staff. These findings underline why ethnic monitoring is urgently needed in the youth justice system, as the noble Baroness has explained.

The Gypsy and Traveller groups that have developed in adult prisons as a consequence of ethnic monitoring have made an enormous difference to Gypsies’ and Travellers’ experiences inside those prisons. These act as a safe space where they can talk about how they are coping in prison and, more importantly, receive support from their own community. A Traveller forum in HM Prison Chelmsford, supported by the Brentwood Ursulines, is testament to this. The forum meetings are now attended by around 40 Gypsies and Travellers and acts a platform for Gypsies and Travellers to speak openly about the challenges that they face.

The forum has also helped to improve the literacy of Gypsies and Travellers. In order to secure a prison job, you are required to pass level 2 literacy, a threshold that many Gypsies and Travellers in prison are, sadly, unable to meet. As is often the case with people who struggle with reading and writing, they fear stigmatisation and ridicule if they admit they cannot read and write. This prevents many Gypsies and Travellers from engaging in education programmes. It is the ultimate Catch-22, a finding that is confirmed by the Irish Chaplaincy’s Traveller Equality Project.

Happily, however, I can report that as a consequence of the forum’s work many of those Gypsies and Travellers have started to take part in the Shannon Trust’s Turning Pages project, which assists prisoners who wish to learn how to read. This has had some significant outcomes, including the possibility of securing jobs. Equally importantly, the forum has also greatly improved the relations between the Gypsy and Traveller prisoners and the prison staff who attend the meetings, and address issues that have been raised. Without the introduction of ethnic monitoring, it is hard to imagine how some of those things would have been achieved.