Rubya Tripty
Arresting of black and minority ethnic children of England and Wales who are accountable for more than a quarter of all child crime raised concern over “appalling” disproportionality in the justice system. Campaigners and politicians have defined it as ‘institutional racism’ and urged the government to take proper action to tackle the situation. 26 percent of the child arrestees are from Black and minority ethnic background, it’s a figure that is more than double of the proportion of minority people in the population as a whole. This data showed through Freedom of Information law.The proportion of BAME children in custody has risen recent years to 49 percent, though the overall percentage of children entering justice system has fallen to a record low. Howard League for Penal Reform showed in their new obtained data that, 22, 579 black or minority ethnic under-18 had been arrested out of total 87,529,last year. The proportion of BAME is 13 percent of total population. It provides an indication that child arrest figures are disproportionate. In London, there has 40 percent BAME population overall, of them more than half (60 percent) were arrested by metropolitan police. In Bedfordshire, 42 percent of minority ethnic children accounted for child arrest, where there is only 23 percent of the total population is BAME. Besides in the West Midlands, 30 percent are non-white, nonetheless, the arrest of 41 recent BAME children was recorded.