Lets Try Inclusion

The news from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission that in England and Wales we imprison more black people proportionally than America is quite shocking. The figure is seven times greater than their representation within the wider community. In the US the equivalent figure is four times. A quarter of all people in prison are now from ethnic minorities and the figure has gone from 11,332 in 1998 to 22,421 by 2008. Apparently some prisons in the South East are virtually all black with a high conversion rate to Islam. 

The report speculates that the problem may start in schools which I find to be a somewhat staggeringly obvious conclusion to draw. It makes the point that black kids are three times more likely to be excluded from school than white kids. For many of my clients, black or white, things started to go wrong when trouble at school resulted in either exclusion or expulsion. It's always amazed me how easy it has been for the education system to wash it's hands of so many youngsters. There are over 10,000 exclusions a year apparently. I routinely ask young clients when they left school and invariably the answer is about 13 or 14. Now of course this cannot be right because the statutory school leaving age is 16 and as far as I know it is still the duty of a Local Education Authority, or whatever the equivalent is nowadays, to supply appropriate education until that age. I know they don't of course, or at least any that works and they don't seem to put a great deal of effort into trying to engage with these troubled kids. 

It's always been glaringly obvious to me as a probation officer that this is simply storing up major trouble further down the line. Why on earth doesn't society put greater effort in at the stage when difficulties first begin to manifest themselves? I'm sure Tony Blair's SureStart initiative has been worth the investment, but something equivalent is needed for these older kids or, as the figures are proving, they end up in custody and costing society a great deal more than if the problem had been tackled at the appropriate stage. Sadly though, as another recent report has highlighted, all we've done is inappropriately diagnose thousands of children with ADHD or a whole range of other similar behavioural conditions.

I suspect, like most intractable social problems, there is no 'silver bullet' but part of the solution might be a charity I hadn't heard of before called School-Home Support. Having been started by an Educational Welfare Officer in London 25 years ago, they aim to avoid school exclusions by supporting the family and working with the school. Growth has been slow but steady and now operates in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire partly thanks to support from the Private Equity Foundation, but maybe the time has come for a more rapid expansion through the new big idea of Social Impact Bonds and so-called Payment by Results. I know there are deep suspicions about this concept, but at the moment I think it's our best hope in a period of reduced government funding especially as it would be paying for an additional resource. As I say, I'm sure it's not the complete answer because I know we desperately need a fully resourced Youth Service as well. But it could be a useful start.