Just for Kids Law welcomes the publication of the Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board’s (ISOB) latest 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 feed into this vital work. We thank ISOB for recognising our contribution.
Our input to the ISOB report drew on what we see daily in our work with children and young people: that policing practices in England and Wales continue to disproportionately harm Black and other racialised children. We emphasised the urgent need to shift from punitive responses to child-centred, rights-respecting approaches rooted in prevention and minimising interactions between children and the police.
We are particularly pleased that ISOB recognises the significance of adultification bias, which sees Black children wrongly perceived and treated as older and more threatening. We share ISOB’s call for a clear national plan to embed findings from the impending Adultification Review into police training, operational policies, and frontline guidance. Tackling adultification is essential to delivering policing that treats all children with dignity and respect and takes a child rights and child centred approach. It is important that this work is done in consultation with organisations that bring expertise on children’s rights and racial justice.
We look forward to seeing whether the ‘Maturity Matrix’—an evidence-based tool to assess how effectively forces are embedding anti-racism—will lead to real, tangible change in police interactions with Black children. We have pushed for a child rights lens to be fully integrated throughout this tool and will monitor its development closely.
Louise King, Co-Lead of Just for Kids Law, including the Children’s Rights Alliance for England said:
“We’re pleased to have contributed to this year’s ISOB report and welcome the Board’s recognition of the unique harms that racialised children face in policing. Black children in particular face distinct and complex challenges in their interactions with the police, including the disproportionate use of force, strip searching, and over-policing.
If the National Police Chief’s Council and College of Policing are serious about building an ‘anti-racist police service’, they must prioritise child-specific protections, tackle adultification, and ensure all children are treated with dignity and have their rights respected.”