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1. Main facts and figures
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in 2016, fewer than 6% of prison officers in England and Wales came from an ethnic minority background (excluding White ethnic minorities)
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since 2013, Black, and Chinese and other prison officers have seen the greatest reduction in their workforce, which has fallen by 44.2% and 43.2% respectively
Things you need to know
Prison officers working in public sector prisons give details of their ethnicity to an online administration system. However, they are not required to state their ethnicity.
In March 2016, 16,448 out of 19,089 prison officers, or 86%, stated their ethnicity.
The percentages in the statistics presented here exclude prison officers whose ethnicities were not known. This adds some degree of uncertainty to the breakdowns by ethnicity.
Prison officers are likely to live, and be recruited from, areas close to prisons. This means that the percentages of prison offers from different ethnic backgrounds may be similar to the percentages of working-age people in general who live in those areas.
Many public sector prisons in England and Wales are located in areas with a relatively low ethnic minority representation.
What the data measures
The data measures the number of full-time and part-time prison officers on a headcount basis in public sector prisons in England and Wales, broken down by ethnicity. Figures do not include staff employed in private prisons.
It includes prison officers in salary bands 3 to 5, which cover frontline prison officers (including specialists), supervising officers and custodial managers. It is a ‘snapshot’ of the number of prison officers employed on 31 March each year. Figures do not include staff employed in private prisons.
The ethnic categories used in this data
Prison officers were asked to place themselves within the following 5 broad ethnic categories:
- Asian/Asian British
- Black/African/Caribbean/Black British
- Chinese and other ethnic group
- Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups
- White
2. Prison officers by ethnicity and time
| 2015 | 2016 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethnicity | 2015 % | 2015 Officers | 2016 % | 2016 Officers |
| Asian or Asian British | 1.2 | 206 | 1.3 | 206 |
| Black or Black British | 2.3 | 401 | 2.4 | 396 |
| Chinese or Other ethnic group | 0.7 | 121 | 0.7 | 108 |
| Mixed | 1.2 | 199 | 1.3 | 213 |
| White | 94.6 | 16,180 | 94.4 | 15,525 |
| Not Known / Prefer not to say | N/A* | 1,851 | N/A* | 2,641 |
Download table data for ‘Prison officers by ethnicity and time’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Prison officers by ethnicity and time’ (CSV)
Summary of Prison officer workforce Prison officers by ethnicity and time Summary
- as at 31 March 2016, of prison officers whose ethnicities were known, 94.4% were White (including White ethnic minorities)
- 5.6% of prison officers who did state their ethnicity were from an ethnic minority group (other than White ethnic minorities), roughly the same as one year earlier
- 13.8% of prison officers didn’t state their ethnicity; this is an increase from 9.8% the previous year
3. Methodology
Data is derived from the staff administration system used by the National Offender Management Service. The numbers represent the data held at the point when extracts were taken. As with all large administrative data sources, some inherent inaccuracy may exist.
Quality and methodology information
Further technical information
4. Data sources
Source
NOMS Annual Staff Equalities report
Type of data
Administrative data
Type of statistic
Official statistics
Publisher
Ministry of Justice
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
This data is used to inform policy development, to monitor the impact of changes over time and to model future changes and their impact on the prison workforce. The data forms the basis for workforce monitoring and decision making.
5. Download the data
This file contains the following: year, ethnicity, value, denominator, numerator.