THE very essence of justice is that is should be the same for all, without discrimination or favour.

It is disturbing, then, that in Lancashire this premise may be flawed -- as it is revealed that offenders from ethnic minorities are more likely to receive harsher community sentences.

And worrying, too, is the notion that this inequality may stem from faults in a key component of our criminal justice system itself -- the Probation Service.

It is, however, to its credit that the trend towards harsher punishment for black and Asian offenders has been exposed through research that the Probation Service itself has commissioned into its practices --because its reports can and do have a powerful influence on the way courts sentence offenders and it recognises that they must always be even-handed.

The imbalance that the research indicates lies in the two options available to magistrates considering sentences for lawbreakers who are not sent to prison -- those of community punishment orders, which commit offenders to a set number of hours working in the community, and the less-harsh community rehabilitation orders, which entail a programme of treatment for offenders aimed at tackling the causes of crime and preventing re-offending.

The revelation that the stricter punishment is being meted out more to offenders from the ethnic community has, we are told, jolted the Probation Service. But its recognition of the trend and determination to examine its practices to ensure that the cause does not lie in any inequality in the preparation of its pre-sentence reports have been welcomed.

But though this disparity in sentencing may stem from a lack of appreciation by some probation workers of cultural variations in the community than from blind prejudice, it is vital that any inequality however it arises is ended.