By Tim Bateman, Isabelle Brodie, Anne-Marie Day, John Pitts and Timi Osidipe

This is a narrative review of the literature relevant to understanding the relationship between ethnicity, disproportionality and diversion of children from the youth justice system. The review is part of wider research project, funded by the Nuffield Foundation and undertaken by the University of Bedfordshire and Keele University, exploring ethnic disparities at the gateway to the youth justice system and the impact of increased use of diversionary mechanisms in that context. Further information on the wider project is available on the Nuffield Foundation website at: Exploring racial disparity in diversion from the youth justice system - Nuffield Foundation. Methodology Literature is drawn largely from UK and US, English language, sources, from 2010 to the present. Grey literature is included where from an authoritative source. The focus is decision-making at the gateway to the youth justice system with a particular emphasis on the mechanisms whereby children are drawn into, or diverted from, formal processing and the extent to which those decisions are characterised give rise to disparity. Search terms were used flexibly and in combination. Disproportionality and the youth justice system Concern about the over-representation of children from minority backgrounds in the youth justice system is long-standing and evidence of disparities are well established. In his government commissioned 2017 review of the treatment of Black and other minoritised individuals within the criminal justice system, David Lammy MP noted that disproportionality in the youth justice system was his ‘biggest concern’ highlighting that ethnic disparities among children receiving criminal disposals had increased in recent years. In the year ending March 2022, 29 percent of children receiving a formal sanction came from a minority background compared to 19 percent a decade before. Similarly, while slightly fewer than one third of the child custodial population came from a minority ethnic background in 2012, a decade later the equivalent figure was in excess of half.

London: Nuffield Foundation 2023. 59p.