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Crime and criminal justice statistics by ethnicity

Official England and Wales evidence on arrests and court outcomes, with the unknown records and interpretation limits kept visible.

Arrests by self-defined ethnicity

Year ending 31 March 2026. The percentages are shares of arrests where ethnicity was recorded. Arrests are not convictions, population arrest rates or proof that an offence occurred.

739,703total arrests in the release
82,321unknown ethnicity · 11.1%
657,382recorded ethnicity

Share of arrests with known ethnicity

England and Wales, excluding Derbyshire Constabulary
White504,682 arrests · 76.8%
Asian or Asian British58,611 arrests · 8.9%
Black or Black British54,779 arrests · 8.3%
Mixed25,061 arrests · 3.8%
Other ethnic group14,249 arrests · 2.2%

Derbyshire Constabulary was excluded because it could not provide data. The Metropolitan Police reported unknown self-defined ethnicity for 33.8% of its arrest records, which affects national composition and year-to-year comparisons.

Open the Home Office release →

Convictions use a different dataset

For indictable offences in 2024, the Ministry of Justice reported similar group shares for prosecutions and convictions where ethnicity was known.

83%White
7%Black
6%Asian
3%Mixed
1%Other
33% unknown

Ethnicity was not stated or was unknown for one-third of defendants in the relevant 2024 data. Percentages among known cases must not be presented as shares of every defendant.

Top five offence groups within each recorded ethnicity

This is the specific breakdown missing from the nationality view. Each list ranks the offence mix within one recorded ethnic group; it does not compare population offending rates.

Calendar year 2024Convictions for indictable offences where ethnicity was known

Asian

ethnic group
  1. Drug offences28%
  2. Other offences20%
  3. Violence against the person19%
  4. Theft offences14%
  5. Miscellaneous crimes against society13%

Not in the top five: sexual offences (7%).

Black

ethnic group
  1. Drug offences29%
  2. Other offences24%
  3. Theft offences18%
  4. Violence against the person18%
  5. Miscellaneous crimes against society7%

Not in the top five: sexual offences (4%).

Mixed

ethnic group
  1. Drug offences25%
  2. Theft offences24%
  3. Other offences21%
  4. Violence against the person21%
  5. Miscellaneous crimes against society7%

Not in the top five: sexual offences (2%).

Other

ethnic group
  1. Theft offences27%
  2. Drug offences22%
  3. Other offences20%
  4. Violence against the person18%
  5. Miscellaneous crimes against society9%

Not in the top five: sexual offences (4%).

White

ethnic group
  1. Theft offences31%
  2. Violence against the person23%
  3. Other offences18%
  4. Drug offences15%
  5. Miscellaneous crimes against society9%

Not in the top five: sexual offences (4%).

Read the unit carefully: these are proportions of 2024 convictions for indictable offences among cases with known ethnicity. They are not the share of an ethnic population convicted, and they are not the nationality-specific prison figures shown elsewhere.

Open the Ministry of Justice ethnicity release →

What adjusted analysis changes

Raw outcome differences can reflect age, sex, offence mix, plea and offending history. The Ministry of Justice’s 2020–2024 sentencing analysis used 640,416 records after excluding cases with missing court or demographic information.

28%

of the original analysis sample was excluded for missing information. The publication says there was no consistent five-year pattern of significant custody differences by ethnicity, though some latest-year group associations remained.

Use these figures responsibly

Do not label arrests as crimes committed

An arrest is a police power applied to a person; it does not establish guilt.

Do not calculate a rate without a matching denominator

A defensible rate needs a population aligned by geography, period and age. The composition of force areas and police activity also matters.

Do not infer causes from group differences

These descriptive tables do not isolate discrimination, offending behaviour, deprivation, geography or operational policing.

Keep source ethnicity definitions visible

Arrest data uses self-defined ethnicity; officer-observed categories and court datasets have different coverage and groupings.

Read the full Ministry of Justice analysis

Related crime and demographic evidence

Each page uses a different population, reference period and statistical unit. Keep those definitions attached when moving between them.

Crime and nationalitySearch the prison nationality snapshot Foreign national offendersCustody, detention and returns Police-force dataNational files and local disclosure evidence Immigration statisticsArrivals, routes and the crime-data gap