The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a Facebook ad for the Ministry of Justice ‘Prison Jobs’ scheme that featured an image of a white prison officer talking to a black inmate.
The ad, released in June this year, contained superimposed text that stated, ‘Become A Prison Officer. One career, many roles’. A caption accompanying the image also read, ‘We’re key workers, problem solvers, life changers. Join us to perform a vital role at HMP Wormwood Scrubs’.
One complainant challenged whether the ad was likely to cause serious offence as they believed that the ad ‘perpetuated’ negative ethnic stereotypes.
The Ministry of Justice responded by claiming that the general public would understand that prisons in England and Wales housed officers and prisoners of multiple ethnicities and that this would be reflected in representations of prisons in the media.
The institution also explained that the photograph used in the campaign only featured real officers and prisoners, meaning the ad did not therefore portray a black man as a criminal but rather depicted a real person who had been convicted of an offence.
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While the Ministry of Justice claimed that the image only formed one small part of the overall campaign, the ASA believed that the post would have appeared to consumers in-feed on Facebook and not in the context of the overall campaign.
The ad authority added: “We understood that there was a negative stereotype based on the association between black men and criminal activity; we therefore assessed whether the ad reinforced a negative ethnic stereotype.”
The ASA found that the ad showed an ‘imbalanced power dynamic’ with a smiling white prison officer described as a ‘life changer’ and a black, institutionalised prisoner.
“We considered the ad’s focus on the positive qualities of the white prison officer and negative casting of the black prisoner was likely to be seen as perpetuating a negative racial stereotype,” the advertising watchdog said.
“We concluded that the ad was likely to cause serious offence on the grounds of race, by reinforcing negative stereotypes about black men.
“The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told the Ministry of Justice to ensure they avoided causing serious offence on the grounds of race.”
