Assaults carried out by young people in custody
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Last updated 11 October 2017 - see all updates
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1. Main facts and figures
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in 2015/16, the rate of assaults by young people from Other ethnic groups in custody was about 1.5 times the rate for White young people in custody
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there were about 24 assaults per 100 young people from Other ethnic groups in custody per month in 2015/16
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there were about 16 assaults per 100 White young people in custody per month in 2015/16
Things you need to know
Each young person carrying out an incident is counted, so a single incident can be counted multiple times. Individuals are often involved in more than 1 incident, so they can be included in the data more than once. This means that the rate per 100 young people in custody per month averaged across the year should be considered with some caution.
Aggregate data is received from the secure estate. The data does not show if an incident involved people from the same or different ethnic groups.
Estimates based on a larger number of respondents are generally more reliable. Therefore, the smaller numbers of respondents from ethnic minority backgrounds mean that estimates for these groups are less reliable than estimates for White people.
What the data measures
This data gives rates of assaults carried out by young people in custody by ethnicity. Each incident a young person in custody carries out is counted and their ethnicity recorded. Rates are expressed per 100 young people in custody per month (on average across the financial year) from 2010/11 to 2015/16.
‘Young person’ and ‘youth’ refers to anyone between the ages of 10 and 18. The data comes from bespoke behaviour management returns and includes 18 year olds.
The data is based on all assault incidents, but does not include information about staff or visitors who may have been victims, or otherwise involved
The data is taken from the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (YJB) publication of Youth Justice annual statistics.
The ethnic categories used in this data
The ethnicity of youths in custody is presented in 2 categories:
- White, which includes White British and White other groups
- Other, which includes all other ethnic minorities
2. Assaults carried out by young people in custody by ethnicity
| Ethnic Group | Number of incidents per 100 young people in custody per month | Average population in custody | Average number of assaults per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| White | 16.2 | 766.4 | 124.3 |
| Other | 24.1 | 524.0 | 126.3 |
Download table data for ‘Assaults carried out by young people in custody by ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Assaults carried out by young people in custody by ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Assaults carried out by young people in custody Assaults carried out by young people in custody by ethnicity Summary
This data shows that:
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there were about 24 assaults per 100 young people from Other ethnic groups in custody per month in 2015/16
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there were about 16 assaults per 100 White young people in custody per month in 2015/16
3. Methodology
Ethnicity is self-reported and recorded on administrative systems by staff based on self-report of offenders. As with all large administrative data sources, some inherent inaccuracy may exist.
The monthly prison population is based on the number of young people in custody at the beginning of the month, plus new admissions during the month. This is then averaged over the year and used to calculate the rate of assaults.
Figures do not include data where ethnicity is unknown.
Rounding
Rates per 100; rounded to 1 decimal point in source data; rounded to nearest percentile in commentary
Related publications
Youth Justice statistics: 2015 to 2016
4. Data sources
Source
Youth Justice Statistics Supplementary Table 8.15
Type of data
Administrative data
Type of statistic
National Statistics
Publisher
Ministry of Justice
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
Youth justice data is used by the government to develop, monitor and evaluate criminal justice policy for young people in custody. It reports on activity in the criminal justice system for England and Wales, giving information for the latest year and also longer-term trends.
5. Download the data
This file contains the following: ethnicity, year, value, denominator, numerator