Though the Black Lives Matter debate may have slipped from the news agendas, the issues it highlighted haven’t gone away. Our key publication in October – a thematic inspection of the experiences of black and mixed heritage boys in the youth justice system – brought into stark relief how different those experiences still are from their white peers.

Through the organisation User Voice, we interviewed 38 boys across nine fieldwork sites and their stories are woven into our report and collected in a separate publication available via our website: User Voice report – Experiences of black and mixed heritage boys in youth justice services (PDF, 4 MB). The boys told us how tough it was growing up in their neighbourhoods; about the way they were stereotyped and discriminated against because of their race and about their stressful experiences of stop and search. And while they were positive about their treatment by youth offending services, they felt they often got little out of the programmes they were offered. These perceptions were backed up by the evidence from our detailed inspections of over 170 cases and interviews with local YOS management boards and staff. Although only a very small minority – one per cent – of black children are in contact with the criminal justice system in any one year, those that are have often profound and complex educational or mental health needs which should have been but were not addressed earlier in their childhood (and often still weren’t in their teenage years). Sixty per cent of our case sample had been permanently excluded from school; one-third were subject to Child in Need or Child Protection processes; one-quarter had a disability. We make 19 recommendations for action including for the Home Office, police, DfE and local authorities and YOT services.

October also saw the relaunch of our local probation inspection programme – now focused on local Probation Delivery Units (PDUs) – starting with Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot and Gwent PDUs. Sadly, our inspection teams couldn’t visit in person because of ongoing Covid-19 restrictions on office capacity, but we were still able to complete a full programme of case inspections, interviews and focus groups remotely. My thanks to all the probation staff and stakeholders who spoke to us in these areas.

Our Youth Inspection Team were also busy in October with fieldwork in Swansea and Wolverhampton. And it was good to be able to able to feedback our insights from previous inspections at the Association of YOT Managers AGM meeting at the beginning of the month – including some excellent and interesting new analysis from our Research Team – Research and Analysis Bulletin – the quality of out of court disposal work by local youth offending services (PDF, 531 kB).

November will see the publication of a major national joint thematic inspection – undertaken by all four criminal justice inspectorates and the CQC – of the support, supervision and services offered to people with a mental illness as they pass through the criminal justice system. Look out for details of a launch event to be advertised soon. We will also be inspecting Surrey youth offending service and piloting our methodology for a national thematic inspection of education, training and employment provision for young people on YOT caseloads, in Newcastle.

And finally, if you would like to get more involved with the work of HMI Probation, we are currently advertising for six HMI inspectors to join us for three year secondments – see our Careers Page on the Inspectorate’s website for more information. You can find out more at the free careers events we’ll be holding on 10 and 22 November. To book your place – see below.

Careers event – 10 November: Sign up – Careers: Being an HM Inspector (adult and quality assurance SFO reviews).

Careers event – 22 November: Sign up – Careers: Being an HM Inspector (adult).