05 September 2017
"Young black people are nine times more likely to be locked up in England and Wales than young white people, according to Ministry of Justice analysis.
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The official exploratory study also shows that young black people are more likely to be identified with “gang concerns” and be considered a risk to others when being sentenced than any other ethnic group.
The research was released on Friday, before next week’s expected publication of the final report of the landmark review into the treatment of black people by the criminal justice system. The report, commissioned by Downing Street and carried out by the Labour MP David Lammy, is expected to include strong recommendations for action."
See: Young black people nine times more likely to be jailed than young white people – report (The Guardian, link)
See the research: Exploratory analysis of 10-17 year olds in the youth secure estate by black and other minority ethnic groups (pdf):
"The aim of this report is to explore further the possible factors that may explain why there is a high proportion of young black people in youth custody. It concentrates on the throughput of cases in the youth justice system, the offences committed by and sentences given to young people, and their key characteristics; including identified risk factors and information on their educational background. The analysis focuses on young black people but comparisons are made throughout the report to other black and other minority ethnic (BAME) groups and to those from white ethnic backgrounds."
Statistical tables are available from the gov.uk (link) website.
This analysis follows two interim reports commissioned by the Lammy Review that were published last November and looked at the associations between ethnic background and being sentenced to prison, and the over-representation of people from ethnic minority backgrounds in the criminal justice system.
That research found that black and ethnic minority defendants are more likely to go prison than white defendants for certain types of crimes, in some cases with massive levels of disproportionality. For example:
"One finding was that for every 100 white women handed custodial sentences at Crown Courts for drug offences, 227 black women were sentenced to custody. For black men, this figure is 141 for every 100 white men.
Among all those found guilty at Crown Court in 2014, 112 black men were sentenced to custody for every 100 white men ."
See: Lammy review: emerging findings published (press release, pdf) and the open letter from David Lammy MP to the Prime Minister (pdf)
The interim reports (pdfs):
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