This article is co-produced by Gavin Wilkinson and a service-user from the travelling community, looking at the challenges faced by the those who identity as travellers who are in the criminal justice system.
Last month, Greater Manchester Police faced allegations of forcibly removing Romany, Gypsy and Irish Traveller (RGT) children, some as young as ten, from a Christmas market and transporting them up to 100 miles away. This incident has been criticised as an act of racial profiling - something which RGT people often face in the UK criminal justice system.
Despite only making up an estimated 0.1 per cent of the UK population, 5 per cent of people in prison identify as RGT. Racialised criminalisation of Nomadic and settled gypsy/traveller lifestyle, alongside entrenched inequalities and social exclusion, are factors that have led to RGT people being overrepresented in the criminal justice and prison system.
Travellers suffer unequal hardship in prison because of poor levels of literacy, mental illness, limited access to services, and racism in prison from prison staff and other prisoners. According to research by the Irish Chaplaincy, many RGT prisoners enter the prison system unable to read or write, with little or no employment skills, and leave prison feeling even more disempowered and socially isolated. Finding it difficult to reintegrate back into society, and inevitably because of prejudicial license conditions, they are too frequently recalled to prison.
Recently, along with a service user in from the travelling community, we have created a traveller support group. The support group is intended to provide a space for RGT ex- prisoners to feel safe and supported whilst assisting them to access vital services. There is a critical need to help and support RGT prisoners to socially reintegrate following their release and avoid the constant cycle of imprisonment that scars so many of their lives. The creation of this support group was also a response to the scant service provision that exists for travellers across the health and criminal justice sector in the United Kingdom, and the marginalisation which many in the community feel.
In addition to this support group, we have also co-produced a traveller handbook to simultaneously support both travellers and the professionals that work with them. The handbook acts as a directory of services that travellers in the criminal justice system can either self-refer to or that professionals can refer them to. So far, this resource has been well received by health professionals working in the criminal justice system, we are hoping to get wider acceptance of the resource across the criminal justice system nationally. The overarching aim being to raise awareness of the availability of traveller services and to empower travellers and professionals working with them to be able to access the services required to aid psychological wellbeing and desistance from crime.
Gavin Wilkinson is a forensic psychologist who works in health and criminal justice settings.
