Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 1998

Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991
requires the Secretary of State to publish such
information as he considers expedient in order
to enable those involved in the criminal justice
system to become aware of the financial
implications of their decisions, or to avoid
improper discrimination on grounds of race,
sex or any other improper grounds. The Home
Office published a series of documents in
1992, 1994, 1995 and 1997 on the issue of
race within the criminal justice system under
these requirements. These documents brought
together both points relating to the
Government's policy on race as well as
statistical information on the representation of
ethnic minorities as suspects, offenders and
victims within the criminal justice system and
on employees within the criminal justice
agencies.
1.2 From 1998 the Home Office has decided to
publish the statistical information separately,
on an annual basis. As new statistical sources
become available, they will be included in this
series. The basic statistical information in this
document should be considered in conjunction
with research reports which are now available
on related issues (see references).
1.3 This year's statistical tables are similar to
many of those in the 1997 publication but are
now more complete with all police forces
providing data. In addition, the percentage of
data shown as 'not known' has fallen
substantially. Because of the improvement in
data quality between the first and second year
of the police data collection it is not possible
to look at year-on-year changes. However it is
expected that such comparisons will be
included in future publications.
Section 95
1.4 The police information is presented in two
ways:
a) Detailed tables covering the ten police
forces with the highest percentage
population of ethnic minorities
(Bedfordshire, Greater Manchester,
Hertfordshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire,
Metropolitan, Nottinghamshire, Thames
Valley, West Midlands and West
Yorkshire). 83 % of the ethnic minority
population of England and Wales are
estimated as living in these police force
areas.
b) Summary tables covering all police force
areas.
1.5 The following conventions have been used
throughout this publication .
0 = nil or less than 0.5%/50
.. = not available
* = not applicable
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