Youth Reoffending Rates
9th February 2010
David Burrowes challenges the Government over its failure to tackle the problem of over-representation of young black people in the criminal justice system.
Mr. David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): In 2007, the Government talked about
However, the latest published figures show that among 15 to 17-year-old prisoners, 17 per cent. of those on remand and 13 per cent. of those sentenced are black. Given the year-on-year increase in the over-representation of young black people in custody, how does the Minister rate the performance of the designated ministerial champion tasked with reducing those numbers? I refer of course to the Justice Secretary.
Maria Eagle: I rate my right hon. Friend extremely highly; he is very good at everything he does as far as I am concerned. The particular issue that the hon. Gentleman raises is very difficult, and we must recognise that black and minority ethnic people are still over-represented in our criminal justice. The reasons for that over-representation are complex. Work is going on to try to tackle it but, as he rightly says, there is still a lot to do.
