The Ethnic Backgrounds of Our Prison Population

According to Webster (2019) we know, from David Lammy and many other sources, that people from a BAME background are over-represented in our prisons. Last week the MoJ published its response to a number of Freedom of Information requests including one which gave the ethnicity of prisoners at every prison establishment in England and Wales on the 31st December last year.

When the data entries for prisoners whose ethnicity was either not recorded or who preferred not to provide it are removed, we can see that on New Year’s Eve 73.1% of our prison population was recorded as “white”, 12.7% as “Black/African/Caribbean/Black British”, 8.1% as “Asian/Asian British”, 4.6% as “Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups” and 1.5% as “other ethnic groups”.

Webster (2019) more interestingly found how the ethnic composition in different establishments varied so much. Obviously, we would expect local prisons which serve multiracial communities to have more of a mix, but he still found the breakdown provided in the FOI response intriguing.

For instance, less than one percent of the prisoners at HMPs Askham Grange, Haverigg, Kirklevington Grange and Lancaster Farms were of Black heritage. By comparison, more than a third of prisoners at Aylesbury (36.3%), Belmarsh (36.4%), Brixton (34.3%), Cookham Wood (41.3%), Feltham (41.8%), Isis (43.8%), Onley (34.9%) and Thameside (34.1%) were Black.

The highest proportion of prisoners of an Asian ethnic background were being held at: Birmingham (15%), Featherstone (16.1%), Hatfield (19.3%), Huntercombe (17.3%), Sudbury (19.1%), Werrington (15.6%) and Wormwood Scrubs (16.9%). At these establishments, more than 1 in 7 prisoners was recorded as being either Asian or Asian British.

There were also five prisons where more than one in ten prisoners was from a mixed ethnic background: Aylesbury (10.3%), Brinsford (10.8%), Cookham Wood (12%), Feltham (11.2%) and Werrington (13.8%).

Additionally, such is the racial disproportionality in our justice system that he was able to find no fewer than 12 institutions where prisoners recorded as white were less than half the population: Aylesbury (42.6%), Belmarsh (44.6%), Brixton (48.4%), Cookham Wood (38.9%), Feltham (32.5%), Huntercombe (43.5%), Isis (32.8%), Onley (41.6%), Pentonville (41.6%), Thameside (37.5%), Werrington (44%), and Wormwood Scrubs (42.6%).

You can also use the data to look at the ethnic profile of different categories of prison, those catering for different genders or those who mainly accommodate perpetrators of particular crimes

(Some institutions specialise in holding sex offenders, for instance).

Clearly this is not the most sophisticated analysis, but hopefully the blog may encourage some readers to take the opportunities to investigate the intelligence behind the data, which are provided to all of us by such Freedom of Information responses. You can gain access to the data below, along with information on short prison sentences, criminal history, convictions and sentencing for indecent images of children, prison staff misconduct, releases from selected prisons into unsettled accommodation and much more https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/foi-releases-for-april-2019