In the aftermath of England's August riots, a small number of girls have been brought before the court. They have been lumped together by the media, predictably described by their clothes and hair. But the main thing they have in common is that they rioted and that they are girls. Why and how they participated in the riots will differ according to their circumstances.
Sadly, violence touches the lives of some girls and young women in their homes, their schools, their relationships, their peer groups and on the streets. Some girls have to navigate violent landscapes each day. Depending on their backgrounds, their contact with those who can help and their self-esteem or resilience, that violence can impact some girls' choices and outlook.
Over the past five years, I have worked with and interviewed hundreds of girls caught up in volatile and violent environments. Some have held firearms on behalf of boys, others have attacked boys. Some say they are aggressive so that young men won't see them as sexual objects to be abused and attacked, others because they want to make money. But how many of these motivations are reflected in our response to their violence?
Interventions for children who have committed offences are centred around why boys engage in, or desist from, offending. The Youth JusticeBoard reported earlier this year that in 2009/10 males were responsible for 78% of all recorded offences committed by young people. Amid the commentary that girls are becoming increasingly violent, the youth justice system has never been designed to respond to offending by young women. From the assessment tools used to predict risk to the interventions designed to decrease vulnerability, girls have been an afterthought. If we really want to prevent offending and reoffending this needs to change.
Taking a gendered approach to the youth justice system is not about making excuses for girls who offend, or claiming that boys should be punished and girls should not. We live in a gendered world. Girls experience the world as girls, and the world responds to them in the same way: their involvement in the riots is another example of this. Any response to girls who have committed offences needs to be able to recognise the gendered context within which these offences are committed.
I have lost count of the numbers who have said to me, "How do you think it was for me – I was the only girl?" when recounting their experiences of being in the youth justice system where their needs were ignored.
While the involvement of girls in violence is documented, we are yet to see a gendered consideration of what needs to happen at a policy level. Speculation about the impact on boys of being raised by single mothers has been plentiful, for example, but what is the impact on girls? Do we know how many girls are in single parent homes because of domestic violence? And even when we can answer these questions, we still need to know the impact of such circumstances on the girls who do commit violence, and the majority who don't. We cannot make sense of young women's involvement in violence until we can pick these issues apart.
We are starting to see progress. Only last month, the all-party parliamentary group on women in the penal system announced that it would hold an independent inquiry into girls in the justice system. Such an inquiry will, for the first time, shine a light on the experiences of young women in a system designed for young men, and make the case for a justice system relevant to girls. The inquiry comes in a year when the government launched its action plan to end violence against women and girls, and backed a plan to tackle child sexual exploitation.
Addressing the victimisation and offending of young women is essential if we are to prevent their use of violence. The recent riots have reawakened the public consciousness to the impact that violence can have on our lives. Now is the time to harness this interest and fear to create a more effective criminal justice system.
Violence damages lives in different ways. A more gendered approach has to be part of the way forward.
Carlene Firmin is founder of the Gag Project to empower gang-affected women and girls.
I recently read that the investment income of grant-making Trusts and Foundations may have shrunk by as much as 20%.
And we all know that income from governments to the charity sector has also declined sharply.
On top of that, I see the recent defunding of key BME and other equality organisations, including Voice4Change England. To me, these are challenging times to find ourselves yet again fighting the battle to prove that BME organisations have a place.
In this climate, I worry that the sustainability of the BME sector is at risk. Many charities have BME service users. What's so special about a BME organisation? And wouldn't it be easier (more 'cost effective'? less duplication?) to simply have one service for all residents of an area, BME and non-BME together? I think we can't afford to ignore these questions.
We urgently need to be able to show that whatever services we provide to our communities and indirectly to the public at large are better than equivalent services provided by non-BME public, private or voluntary sector competitors.
Certainly my experience atNaz Project London (NLP) has informed how I think about all this. And for us that has to do with an emphasis on the self-help peer model. For years, we seemed unable to reach out to Black gay and bisexual men until we found a Black gay man to lead on that work. This approach is also true in our other services where, for example, Latin Americans work with Latin Americans, or Asians work with Asians.
It seems to me that working from such a framework makes it far more likely that we have a sound grasp of the relevant needs and expectations in our communities. Again, taking NPL as an example, we ensure that the majority of our Board, staff and volunteers - we aim for 80% - come from the communities we serve. This ensures we have a deep reach into those BME communities, with minimal insider/outsider gap between our staff and our beneficiaries. I believe the concept of 'hard to reach' usually emerges in situations where there is an obvious gap between the service provider and the service user.
And lastly, I don't see how we can illustrate our unique effectiveness without some well chosen numbers, stories and acknowledgements.
The responses to the recent riots in England are a good example of how some have jumped to solutions that are not primarily based on evidence but rather on ideology, knee jerk reactions and fads.
We need to be able to show that what we are doing makes a real difference. To do this, we need numbers. But at NPL we are particularly aware of the value of community engagement and support. We therefore also put a high premium on powerful testimonies from our service users as well as from leaders in and outside of our communities.
From: http://voice4change-england.co.uk/content/urgent-need-usp-bme-sector
As we know, the government’s policy about what happens in cities and neighbourhoods is based on its principles of ‘localism’ and encouraging the ‘Big Society’. On the other hand, its policies on migration are essentially national ones – cutting net migration and introducing a whole raft of detailed changes in the different kinds of migration status and in migrants’ entitlements to services.
Where localism meets migration policy is of course – or should be – in government plans about integrating migrants and tackling issues of community cohesion in neighbourhoods where migrants are living. Here there is a huge gap. The previous government’s modest Migration Impacts Fund has finished and their refugee and migrant integration policies no longer apply. A new policy on integration generally is promised, but so far we only have speeches by ministers to go on. These have often been more worrying than reassuring, in seeing the issues not as ones of neighbourhood integration but very much in terms of addressing Muslim extremism – which is, to say the least, taking a limited view of the pressures that occur in places where new migrants have settled.
So there is a leadership gap – who will address the everyday problems that exist both for new migrants and for the neighbourhoods where they live? For the last two years the Housing and Migration Network has been looking at ‘leadership’ as one of a range of issues, and has now published a 'Viewpoint' paper about addressing the leadership ‘gap’. As part of the argument, it shows how housing organisations have played key roles and could potentially do more.
A prime example is from the North West, where the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) acts as co-ordinator both for asylum dispersal and for migrant integration across eleven different local authorities. The region has delivered about two-thirds of the placements of refugees under the Gateway Protection Programme, as well as accommodating significant numbers of asylum seekers. Financial resources from asylum dispersal contracts helped 'glue together’ the partnerships needed to deliver these arrangements and to carry out wider neighbourhood integration work. This included supporting Refugee Action as the regional partner, as well as a range of links with small, community-based groups. Housing providers have had a lead role in many of the initiatives.
Could leadership examples like this be replicated elsewhere? Of course, there already are examples in other regions and in Scotland and Wales too, but there are a number of new challenges. One is the pernicious effect of the spending cuts, which not only means services are reduced or withdrawn but that it becomes even more controversial to respond to migrants’ needs. At the same time, cuts in services clearly lead to tensions, which might result in conflict between communities (that so far – even in the recent riots - seems to have been avoided).
Another threat is the changes in asylum dispersal contracts, which are increasingly going to private companies rather than social landlords. This makes it unlikely that any surpluses will be invested in integration work, as they have been up until now in Greater Manchester and elsewhere.
But even in this climate, housing organisations have a particular role and more organisations could build on the experience that others have. The needs that exist in neighbourhoods where migrants have settled are no less urgent: tackling issues of neighbourhood quality (the ‘crime and grime’ issues that can easily be blamed on newcomers), changes in local housing markets and their effects, new pressures on local facilities, addressing the lack of jobs and skills. Housing providers can and do have a role in these and other issues.
Finally, in many areas migrants are still struggling to build their own local organisations, to provide advice services to new arrivals and help in neighbourhood integration. Housing providers, who often have experience of working with and fostering residents’ organisations, can help here too. They may be able to support community groups with training, office space or perhaps secondments. They may be able to broker their membership of wider networks or help them secure grants.
Even if overall levels of migration fall as a result of government policy – and it is far from certain that they will – the effects of recent migration are here to stay. Many places are going through a process of change: migration may be only one of the factors but it can be a critical and sensitive one. Because of their role in neighbourhoods, housing providers are uniquely placed both to recognise the issues and to act on them. The paper published this week aims to encourage more of them to do it.
Read the summary report JRF: UK migration: the leadership role of housing providers
Source: http://www.migrantsrights.org.uk/migration-pulse/2011/migration-who-will-take-lead-local-level
Nick Hurd announces four local authorities will run pilots, offering contracts to charities and social enterprises to tackle 'the pointless cycle of crime and deprivation'
The Office for Civil Society is to ask private and charitable investors to purchase social impact bonds worth up to £40m that will fund new schemes to support "problem families".
Nick Hurd, the Minister for Civil Society, announced today that Westminster,Hammersmith and Fulham, Birmingham and Leicestershire local authorities had been chosen to pilot schemes.
"We must not be afraid to do things differently to end the pointless cycle of crime and deprivation which wrecks communities and drains state services," said Hurd. "Social impact bonds could open serious resources to tackle social problems in new and innovative ways."
Each council will devise a contract that specifies targets for families, which might include an increase in school attendance, a fall in criminal behaviour or a reduction in drug or alcohol abuse.
Charities and social enterprises will then bid for the contracts and find private and social investors to give financial backing.
If the charities meet targets specified in the contract their investors will receive a financial return. If they don’t, they may not get all their money back at the end of the investment period. Each council will work out its own system.
An OCS spokesman said Big Society Capital, formerly known as the Big Society Bank, might be able to offer some investment in the scheme.
The last couple of weeks have shown us British society at its best and at its worst; the horrific scenes we saw of rampaging youths rioting across some of our major cities and the inspiring internet campaign that saw thousands of us clean up our streets. The inspiring campaign however must not mask the fact that pockets of British society are broken and that our communities are fragmented. We need a stronger and bigger society.
Governments have made significant mistakes in the way they have worked with civil society over many decades. Some have sought to control people through the machine of the state, whilst others have abdicated responsibility. I am hopeful that this Government is looking at a different approach. Indeed, in his speech last Monday, David Cameron commented "Government cannot legislate to change behaviour, but it is wrong to think the State is a bystander. Because people’s behaviour does not happen in a vacuum: it is affected by the rules government sets and how they are enforced”.
As well as addressing these causes of poverty, however, the Government needs to continue to look at another problem: how to increase the glue that holds our communities together – social capital, too many people lack aspiration, hope and a sense of belonging to society. 97% of communities have become more fragmented in the last thirty years and even the strongest communities today are weaker than the weakest in 1971.
Increasing social capital is not about creating some left wing utopia; it is about slowing down the conveyer belt to crime. Statistics show that crime is lower in places where people know their neighbours, when parents take an active interest in their child’s school, the teachers try harder and the children do better, and connected communities are good for children: babies are born healthier, teenage pregnancies are fewer, and young people are less likely to get involved in crime.
The ways of doing this are many and complex, but Government can play a role. If social capital is not built, disenfranchisement amongst communities will only increase and we will continue to be stuck in a system of top-down control where people continue to lack aspiration and hope.
In order to facilitate the building of social capital, the Government needs to:
In short, it is no good just stopping the conveyer belt to crime; if we are to create a stronger and bigger society, we all need to walk on a different path. We must make sure that we are tackling poverty in a way that empowers communities and builds social capital; without this we will be falling into the same top down mistakes of previous years and won’t enable people to escape the cycles of poverty that many are trapped in.
From:
Overall, the UN review of the UK this week was a pretty intensive process. Both UK race equality NGOs and the UK government were quizzed about the state of race equality in the UK over a three-day period. It was my role to try and draw the Committee's attention to migrants' rights issues, and the discriminatory aspects of many immigration policies.
First up on Monday were the NGOs from the UK, ranging from international organisations to local NGOs. I was part of a UK race equality NGO delegation coordinated by the Runnymede Trust, and involving the Discrimination Law Association, Equanomics, Just West Yorkshire and many others. The NGO sessions were our chance to try and influence the agenda for the Committee’s main examination of the government and we packed them with written and oral briefings supporting our concerns. For more on this, have a look at my previous blog, and in our full report here. I had just a five minute presentation and a Q & A session to try and summarise our key migration-related concerns for the Committee - not easy!!
After the NGOs' time was up, representatives from the UK government took the stand on Tuesday afternoon to offer up their side of the story. And then finally, the Committee members responded with their impressions of what is going on in the UK.
Overall, UN Committee members pointed out that the UK has built a strong reputation in terms of race equality legislation and policy. But a number of members said they were concerned about changes since May 2010 which risk undermining race equality. In particular, they refered to the risk that public sector spending cuts could unfairly affect minorities, raised concerns about the 'localism' agenda, and pointed out that parts of the Equality Act 2010 have still not come into force. The recent riots in Tottenham were commented on by almost all Committee members, who were concerned that they reflected deeper issues about the socio-economic position of some ethnic minorities. Another issue raised by many members was the imminent eviction of Irish Travellers from Dale Farm and a lack of appropriate sites for many UK Gypsies and Travellers.
Immigration and asylum issues were brought up by Committee members too, and in particular, the government had to field questions on:
At the end of the trip I was satisfied that, although immigration was not the ‘top issue’ at the meeting, we got our issues on the table. It is now up to the UN Committee members to agree and write up their Concluding Observations next week which will go to the government. We now have our fingers crossed that they reflect some of the very real concerns that we have about how immigration policies impact on race equality in the UK today.
The Open Public Services White Paper (OPSWP) crystallises the policy development around Big Society and Localism, which the NW BME Policy Forum has been discussing since summer 2010. The OPSWP is a framework for the reform of the public sector that brings together some policy changes already underway and proposes further consultations and legislation changes.
This signals a shift away from the post-war welfare state and shows that after all the debate and confusion, the Big Society is primarily about Small Government. This is a total rejection of the old centralised approach to public service delivery and promises to open up nearly all public services to tender. The OPSWP has far-reaching implications for all users of public services and the voluntary and community sector (VCS) that require consideration.
The White Paper sets out five key principles for modernising public services, which are as follows:
These require equality analysis and we must ask the question of how will these fundamental issues impact on BME communities: will the proposed reforms lead to improvements in public services for all, will it improve the quality of our democracy and will the be included within the new model?
One North West: Open Public Services White Paper - A Discussion Paper raises these questions.
To take part in our short survey and to be part of our response, please follow this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HZXJXJM
Runnymede and other UK race equality organisations are in Geneva ahead of the UK Government’s examination by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 23 and 24 August. The Committee will be assessing the government’s policies on tackling racism and inequalities in the UK’s BME communities, and race organisations will be there to make sure the most important issues are brought to the table.
Runnymede and other race equality organisations produced a report in June 2011 which was submitted to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) ahead of its examination of the UK Government later this month. The report highlights the key challenges faced by ethnic minorities in the UK and where the Government could be doing more to tackle inequalities in BME communities
For the report, please see the Joint submission by UK NGOs Against Racism to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
Social Market Foundation says past experience indicates most providers are unlikely to reach the prescribed figures
Twenty-two of the 24 lead providers of Flexible New Deal, the Labour government’s welfare-to-work scheme, would have failed to meet the targets being set by the government for Work Programme providers, according to a think tank report.
Will the Work Programme Work?was published yesterday by theSocial Market Foundation. It says theDepartment for Work and Pensions’ performance targets are "unreachable" and this could lead to the failure of the programme.
The programme’s measure of success is that 5.5 per cent of people placed on the scheme in the first year find work, rising to 27.5 per cent in the second year and 33 per cent in the third.
The report says the proportions, based on experience of the FND, are likely to be 4.1, 20.5 and 27.8. It concludes that 22 of the 24 FND providers would fail to reach the minimum targets set for programme providers over the first three years.
Ian Mulheirn, director of the SMF, said the figures in the think tank’s report had been adjusted to take into account the variations between the two welfare-to-work programmes, and only applied to adult long-term Jobseekers’ Allowance claimants.
He said this allowed the figures to be compared on a fair basis.
"Past experience suggests these targets are not going to be attainable," he said. "It is not clear why the DWP thinks Work Programme providers will achieve results that are so much better than were achieved under the Flexible New Deal."
He said the government had warned that it would terminate the contracts of providers that could not deliver the minimum levels. "This threatens to create huge instability in the programme," he said.
In a statement, Chris Grayling, the Employment Minister, said: "The providers are investing £500m of their own money into the Work Programme this year alone, and they wouldn’t be doing that unless they were confident of making a real difference in getting people into sustainable employment and achieving results."
Of 1,099 subcontractors involved in the scheme, 508 are from the voluntary sector, according to the DWP
From: http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/DailyBulletin/1086057/Work-Programme-targets-unreachable-says-think-tank
David Cameron’s speech upon the recall of Parliament in the wake of the optimistically-named ‘August Riots’ was accompanied by a ticker along the bottom of the news channel: An eleven year old girl had now been arrested for involvement in the looting. At the same time, our Prime Minister was menacingly telling all involved that:‘we are coming for you’.
This threatening language, against some of our young people that David Cameron once wanted to hug, is mirrored by a sense of anger throughout the psyche of country, shown by a recent YouGov poll, which showed that eighty one percent of people think that the sentences are either about right, or too soft. This includes a 23-year-old college student who, despite having no criminal record, was jailed for six months on Thursday for stealing a £3.50 case of bottled water.
This is surely a time for political leadership that considers our collective future. Disproportionate sentences simply will not bring long-term solutions.
David Cameron recently said that:‘I think in life sometimes it's right to give someone a second chance’. If Andy Coulson deserves a second chance, then why not our young people?
Surely policy that does not abandon our young people, which considers restorative justice and community sentences, would serve our communities better. By handing out draconian sentences that further alienates sections of our society (and may even yet be expensively overturned in the court of appeals), we are missing an opportunity to listen to the voices of young people and risk leaving the issues to fester. Furthermore, how will evicting whole families from council housing bring long-term solutions?
No one would wish to condone looting, burning and attacks on the police, nor ignore personal responsibility. However, it is also the case that by focussing on the easy targets, the so-called ‘feral youths,’ and dismissing the riots as‘criminality pure and simple,’the Government’s reaction avoids the harder questions. These harder questions include the role and culpability of generations of government policy, discrimination throughout society and the issue of poverty that blights people’s lives.
To understand is not to excuse, despite what some politicians and commentators that are intent on stifling debate would have us believe.
There are no easy answers, but we need to listen to our young people. As one young person in our recent Voice of the North project eloquently declared:‘We should be able to go to Government to express our feelings because at the end of the day, we are the ones living in the situation’.
Our partnership in the Voice of the North project brings together organisations working for and with young people in the North of England and our NW BME Policy Forum involves BME voluntary and community sector organisations across all equality strands and from both rural and urban areas. Through these collective approaches, One North West campaigns for greater equality and social justice within Government policy and works to ensure that Northern voices are heard within the decision making process. Recent events have made this more important than ever.
For more information please email:daniel.silver@vsnw.org.ukor visitwww.onenorthwest.org.uk
From: http://voice4change-england.co.uk/content/response-riots-abandoning-our-collective-future
