Assaults carried out by young people in custody
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Last updated 14 May 2019 - see all updates
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1. Main facts and figures
- between 2010/11 and 2016/17, the rate of assaults per 100 young people in custody doubled for both White young people and for young people from all other ethnic groups combined
- in 2016/17, there was an average of 18 assaults per month for every 100 young people in custody from the White ethnic group, and an average of 24 assaults per month for every 100 young people in custody from all other ethnic groups combined
- in 2016/17, the rate of assaults by young people in custody from the Other ethnic group was about 1.3 times higher than that of White young people in custody
Things you need to know
Each young person carrying out an assault is counted, so a single incident can be counted multiple times. Individuals are often involved in more than 1 assault, 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. The data does not show if an incident involved people from the same or different ethnic groups.
Estimates based on a larger number of prisoners are generally more reliable. Therefore, the smaller numbers of prisoners from ethnic minority backgrounds mean that estimates for these groups are less reliable than estimates for White people.
What the data measures
This data shows rates of assaults carried out by young people in custody by ethnicity. Each assault carried out by a young person in custody 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 2016/17.
'Young people’ and 'young offenders' are aged between 10 and 17 years. The data may also include some 18 year olds.
The data includes young people held in:
- young offenders’ institutions
- secure children’s homes
- secure training centres
The data is based on all assault incidents, but does not include information about staff or visitors who may have been victims, or be 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 number of young people carrying out assaults was too small to draw any firm conclusions based on specific ethnic categories. Therefore, the data is broken down into the following 2 broad categories:
- White (including White British and White ethnic minorities)
- Other (all other ethnic minorities)
2. By ethnicity
| White | Other than White | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time | White Rate of incidents per 100 young people in custody per month | White Average population in custody | White Average number of assaults per month | Other than White Rate of incidents per 100 young people in custody per month | Other than White Average population in custody | Other than White Average number of assaults per month |
| 2010/11 | 9 | 1,911.4 | 172.8 | 12 | 971.2 | 116.7 |
| 2011/12 | 8 | 1,727.7 | 143.3 | 12 | 1,039.8 | 123.3 |
| 2012/13 | 10 | 1,381.3 | 131.7 | 11 | 860.8 | 96.0 |
| 2013/14 | 13 | 1,025.9 | 132.2 | 18 | 628.3 | 111.7 |
| 2014/15 | 14 | 866.1 | 124.2 | 20 | 549.8 | 111.9 |
| 2015/16 | 16 | 766.4 | 125.2 | 25 | 524.0 | 129.4 |
| 2016/17 | 18 | 653.7 | 120.3 | 24 | 509.0 | 124.0 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Assaults carried out by young people in custody By ethnicity Summary
- in 2016/17, there was an average of 18 assaults per month per 100 White young people in custody, compared with 24 assaults per month per 100 young people in custody from all other ethnic groups combined
- between 2010/11 and 2016/17, the average rate of assaults committed by White young people in custody doubled from 9 to 18 per 100 young people
- in the same period, the average rate of assaults committed by young people in custody from all other ethnic groups combined also doubled, from around 12 to around 24 per 100 young people
3. Methodology
The monthly population of the youth secure estate 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 young people in custody are rounded to the nearest whole number. You can see rates rounded to 1 decimal place if you download the data.
Related publications
Youth Justice statistics: 2016/17.
Quality and methodology information
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