By Claudia Tomlinson
Britain has a system of Pupil Referral Units (PRUs), which are over-populated with black children, those whose parents and grandparents are settlers from the West Indies and Africa. Its Youth Offending Institutions — prisons for young people before they enter the adult system — are overflowing with black and Asian young people. Many of these young people were earlier in PRUs; they were evicted from mainstream schools to await a destiny with adult prison. This is a pattern repeated globally in the Western world, with young black and minortised people facing a unique path, or pipline, from school rejection to prison. Explanations widely touted include notions of bad home life, bad genes, or bad luck. But a recent BBC television documentary, suggests that it is the behaviour and attitudes of the state that play a role in condemning black children.
