Working with Racist Offenders
| Date | 01 July 1993 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059304000201 |
| Published date | 01 July 1993 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
54
Working
with
Racist
Offenders
An
Anti-Racist
Response
Andy
Gill
and
Trevor
Marshall of
Hereford
and
Worcester
Probation
Service
explore
the
complex
nature
of
racist
offending
and
suggest
a
model
for
systematic,
anti-
oppressive
challenge
in
probation
practice.
m
ost
attention
in
criminal
justice
has
been
paid
to
the
un-
just
treatment
receiv-
ed
at
the
hands
of
the
police,
courts,
prison
and
probation
services
by
black
people.
All
too
little
has
been
done,
especially
on
an
agency-wide,
structured
level,
about
dealing
with
the
racist
offenders
who
daily
come
into
contact
with
pro-
bation
officers.
This
is
not
to
say
that
no
challenging
takes
place.
Officers,
both
black
and
white,
have
realised
the
impor-
tance,
and
tackled
the
problem,
with
vary ng
degrees
of
success.
One
notable
success
was
that
of
Shamim
Khan.3
The
criminal
justice
system
has
pro-
blems
in
recognising
racist
offences
and
acknowledging
their
extent.
We
believe
that
racist
offences
often
become
disguised
within
the
criminal
justice
system
and
’lose’
their
racist
identity.
This
process
is
one
of
the
reasons
why
Home
Office
statistics
do
not
accurate-
ly
or
fully
reflect
the
true
scale
of
the
problem.
Furthermore,
it
is
our
view
that
racist
offending
is
a
more
complex
phenomenon
than
the
statistical
picture
indicates.
We
would
suggest
two
broad
types
of
racist
offending:
overt
and
covert.
Overt Racist
i
;
Firstly,
there
is
a
common
sense
notion
shared
by
many
in
the
criminal
justice
system
and
the
general
public
that
racist
offending
usually
comprises
abuse,
violence
or
criminal
damage
against
black
people,
or
their
property,
motivated
by
racism
and
often
inform-
ed
by
far-right
political
ideology.
However,
the
treatment
of
such
of-
fences
within
the
criminal
justice
system
falls
into
two
categories.
Some
offences
are
recognised
from
the
mo-
ment
of
reporting
as
racist,
and
pur-
sued
as
such
through all
levels
of
the
system.
The
result
of
this
is
that
the
Crown
Prosecution
Service
offers
in-
formation
to
the
court
which
includes
the
racist
context
which
is
hopefully
taken
into
account
during
trial
and
sentence.
Unfortunately,
most
racist
of-
fences
are
subject
to
a
different
ap-
proach.
At
one
or
more
of
the
stages
at
which
the
racist
element
has
to
be
acknowledged
by
the
system,
this
fails
to
happen
and
the offence
loses
its
racist
identity.
The
offence,
in
effect,
becomes
’race
neutral’.
As
a
conse-
quence,
racially
motivated
offences
can
be
prosecuted
with
no
mention
of
the
racist
context.
One
of
the
main
reasons
for
this
is
that
there
is
no
clear
defini-
tion
of
what
makes
an
offence
racist.
The
Inter-Departmental
Racial
At-
tacks
Group
(RAG),
chaired
by
the
Home
Office,
was
set
up
in
order
to
assess
the
ways
by
which
’Racial
At-
tacks’
could
be
combatted.
When
try-
ing
to
define
the
problem
they
found
that
the
terms
’racial
Attacks’
’racial
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