Race, ethnicity, young people and offending: the elephant in the room

ABSTRACT

Can we start to say Race again when discussing youth and justice? This demand emerges from the findings of the participatory action research reported in this article. Fifty young people, in custody or in contact with youth offending teams (YOT), discussed the support that would enable them to desist from offending behaviour. Race was a prism through which they saw their experience. Rather than naming racism, family appeared to be a covert, legitimate, way of talking about identity, solidarity and difference. Family ties, overlaid with experiences of race and racism, could be reasons for engaging in behaviour that was seen as criminal. Family, overlaid with ethnicity, could become a source of support to enable young people to cope with the challenges of being involved in and desisting from offending behaviour. At a time where policy and political language has shifted from rac(ism) to a culturalist discourse focused on ethnicity or religion, naming Race and racism remains vital. Only by acknowledging the differentiating power of Racism can the experience of young people in contact with YOT be understood. Only by appreciating the value of shared experience of race (within families and communities) can appropriate pathways towards alternative futures be offered.

KEYWORDS:

• Race
• racism
• ethnicity
• identity
• family
• YOT

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

John Wainwright http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8190-0144

Notes

1 The young people referred to in this paper, range from 11to 18 years of age who are protected by Council of Europe (CoE, 2010) guidelines on child friendly justice. In the UK they are deemed to be of the age (of criminal responsibility) with which UK Youth Offending Teams work and can be placed in custody as set out by the 1998 UK Crime and Disorder Act. Although, only one participant was 11 years of age, and most (86%) were 15–18 years of age.

2 Race is not a satisfactory term as it is a social construction based on negative ethnic characteristics. However, it is used in this article as a means of articulating differentiation as a tool for analysis of this difference.

3 Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) are the statutory agency in the UK that work with children and young people to prevent them from offending or desist from this behaviour.

4 National Offender Management Services.

5 Dual heritage is one of many terms used to describe people who have parentage of more than one ethnicity. Just as mixed race, or mixed ethnicity is not really satisfactory, neither is dual heritage. However, this term focuses on the positive characteristics and differences of ethnicities without ossifying and reifying difference through the term race.

6 These discussions were not prompted by any questions by the researchers, but it is possible that our physical ‘race’ presence was a prompt. One of us self identifies as a white British woman, the other as a man of dual, African/Caribbean-white, heritage.