Criminal Justice Board Race Sub Group

What is it?
The Cheshire Criminal Justice Board Race Sub Group brings together senior members of the Police, Probation, Crown Prosecution Service, Magistrates Courts Committee, Youth Offending Teams and Cheshire, Halton and Warrington Race Equality Council. The members are drawn from executive level in the constituent services and their job is on behalf of the Criminal Justice Board to promote trust and confidence amongst black and minority ethnic (BME) communities in Cheshire, Halton and Warrington in the Criminal Justice System. It has been recognised for some time that members of these minority communities can feel disadvantaged in the Criminal Justice process. The core objective of the group is to review how each of the constituent Criminal Justice Agencies are performing in relation to race issues, take action where necessary and promote better understanding and confidence amongst BME communities. Ultimately our goal is to ensure that people from these minority communities receive a fair and equitable service and are not subject to discrimination in the criminal justice system. This applies whether they are victims of crimes or racists incidents or are suspects or defendants in the Criminal Justice process.

What does the Race Sub Group Do?
We meet quarterly and review in detail what has been happening across the Criminal Justice System in Cheshire, Halton and Warrington as it affects people from the BME communities. Areas that we scrutinise include:

• Reports of racist incidents made to the police either directly or through third parties.

• Numbers of racially motivated crimes.

• Outcomes of these reports in terms of people brought to justice and offenders being identified.

• Crown Prosecution Service cases proceeded with, conviction rates and support provided for victims of racist incidents.

• Probation Service bail and remand in custody rates compared to white offenders.

• Our objective in reviewing statistics in these areas is to identify and act upon any significant differences to the way in which people from minority ethnic communities are either victimised or treated in the Criminal Justice System compared to the white population. We also scrutinise carefully the effectiveness of Criminal Justice Agencies in terms of outcomes when racist incidents and crimes are reported.

As well as monitoring these specific elements of Criminal Justice System, we also have an internal focus to ensure that our agencies are open and reach people from BME communities, accordingly working with the Race Equality Council we monitor vacancies and recruiting processes in each of the Criminal Justice Agencies to


ensure that we better promote the opportunities that are available to people from BME communities. By having more people from BME communities working within the Criminal Justice System we believe the confidence in those communities will improve.

As well as an ongoing monitoring responsibility, where we identify any areas of concern, we commission further research and take action where we believe it is needed. Examples include where we consider reporting rates for racial incidents are very low and that this may be down to a lack of confidence and understanding amongst local minority communities of the support that they should get from the Criminal Justice Agencies when they report racist incidents. We also actively promote publicity of successful prosecutions of racists to act as a deterrent to others and reassure minority communities that we will act positively.

Want To Know More?
Details of our action plan and regular updates on our activity can be found on the Local Criminal Justice Board website http://www.lcjb.cjsonline.org/cheshire. This also gives details of contacts within the respective agencies if you want to find out more.