Interview with local MP: John Denham

This from Young People Now

Having formerly served as minister for children and young people, John Denham is familiar with the issues that young people face today.

But even he was surprised at some of the outcomes of a report by the Home Affairs Select Committee, which he chairs, into the over-representation of black young people and the criminal justice system.

After a year of evidence-gathering and research, the committee discovered that social exclusion was the key factor in why young black people are over-represented.

"The committee set out to look at what lay behind the clear statistics that show an over-representation of black people at any stage of the criminal justice system," says Denham. "We wanted to try to understand and see what might be done about it.

"When we started out I didn't anticipate that schools would prove to be so central, such as the influence of exclusion and victimisation when going to and from school," he says. "I was also encouraged by focus group research we did on attitudes that discovered the public are much more resilient to racial stereotyping."

Denham, who is MP for Southampton Itchen, says a lot of work needs to be done to tackle the inequality. He feels the Youth Justice Board has a "laissez faire" attitude towards managing youth offending teams (YOTs). He claims some YOTs are making more effort to get to the root of the problem than others, but concedes that a one-size-fits-all philosophy would not work for teams from different areas.

"I would say that with this issue the YJB hasn't stressed it strongly enough," he says. "The disproportion is clear in some areas. The YJB does not have to insist that they all tackle the problem in the same way, but that everyone gives priority to looking at it locally," he says.

Denham is very concerned about the impact of the statistical imbalance that the report uncovers: "If you're disproportionately stopping black young people, you will get more black people on the DNA database," he says. "Somewhere down the line you will arrest more black people that are on the database. You could say there's an advantage to being a white criminal because they're not on it. There needs to be a debate about the huge difference in representation of people on the database."

Another issue that is raised in the report is the influence of rap music on black young people. Denham says that although the topic is important, too much attention has been placed on it.

"The measured view was that the majority of listeners aren't going to be affected by it but there will be a minority of young people that are already vulnerable," he says.

"It's not desirable or practical to deal with it by extending censorship but it's important that broadcasters understand the impact rap music can have on some audiences."

The report has been sent to the Government to read and consider its recommendations and Denham is confident that it will take the committee's suggestions on board. "I'm hopeful," he says. "Since starting the inquiry, a number of crimes have pushed the issue up the political agenda. The Government knows that the responses it has made haven't been as successful as it would have liked.

"By setting out the issues that need to be tackled, we can help them with policy to combat this."

FYI

- Denham was born in 1953 and educated at Woodroffe Comprehensive School, Lyme Regis and Southampton University, where he became president of the students' union

- He was head of youth affairs at the British Council from 1979 until 1983

- Denham was appointed under-secretary of state at the Department of Social Security in May 1997 and has held various positions including a cross-government role as minister for children and young people

- He resigned from the Government in March 2003 over the invasion of Iraq

- He has been chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee since 2003.