The Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE), part of Just for Kids Law, welcomes the publication of the Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board’s (ISOB) annual feedback report on the Police Race Action Plan (PRAP). We are pleased to be playing a leading role in civil society scrutiny of PRAP and to have had the opportunity to contribute to this important process. We thank ISOB for recognising our contribution.
Black and other racialised children continue to face harmful, traumatic and discriminatory policing practices, including over-policing, the disproportionate use of force, stop and search and strip searches. Black children are also more likely to be held overnight in police custody. These issues are a violation of children's rights and have been raised by both the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination following their examinations of the UK.
We emphasised the urgent need to move away from punitive policing towards a child-centred, rights-respecting approach that recognise the unique vulnerabilities of racialised children.
Specifically we called for:
- PRAP to be explicitly aligned with the recent Concluding Observations of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
- A Child Rights Impact Assessment to be carried out on PRAP.
Louise King, Co-Lead of Just for Kids Law and Director of the Children’s Rights Alliance for England said:
“PRAP presents a critical opportunity to embed child-centred and rights respecting policing across all forces. To achieve this, forces must take steps to ensure that children’s rights are upheld in every police interaction. That means recognising racialised children as a distinct group, tackling adultification bias, treating all children with dignity and respect and ensuring that knowledge and understanding of children’s rights is embedded across policing.”