Ethnicity and Crime

You asked

I am compiling a report on the increase in crime and the effects that an influx of refugees and migrants has on the UK figures.

I cannot find anywhere on your site figures regarding these statistics.

Under the freedom of information act I would like to have sight of;

1. How you record ethnicity in relation to crime (if at all) and, If you do why it is not readily available in the statistics you have published.

2. Any directive you have been issued with regarding divulging the relationship between ethnicity and crime to the public in your statistics.

3. The figures relating to sexual crimes of women and children and race/ethnicity.

4. The figures relating to robberies and burglaries and race/ethnicity

We said

Thank you for your request for information on ethnicity in relation to crime.

Official statistics on crime are based on two main sources, Police recorded crime and the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). While police recorded crime statistics held by ONS do not include any information on the ethnicity of victims of crime, data from the CSEW do. We routinely publish data from the CSEW giving the prevalence of crime victimisation broken down according to the ethnicity of the victim. These data tables, which use the standard National Statistics harmonised ethnicity classification (based on the 2011 Census), are published annually and the latest release is available on the ONS website here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesannualtrendanddemographictables (See 03. Annual Trend and Demographic Tables – table D1)

You also asked for information on ethnicity in relation to sexual offences, robbery and burglary. We publish CSEW data on the ethnicity of victims of different forms of crime in separate statistical bulletins, also released annually. Data on robbery victims are published on the ONS website here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/compendium/focusonviolentcrimeandsexualoffences/yearendingmarch2015/bulletintablesfocusonviolentcrimeandsexualoffencesyearendingmarch2015 (See 02. Appendix Tables - Focus on Property Crime, 2014 to 2015 – table 1.06)

Data on the ethnicity of victims of sexual offences are published on the ONS website here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/focusonpropertycrimeappendixtables (See 02. Appendix tables - focus on violent crime and sexual offences, year ending March 2015 - table 4.10)

We do not routinely publish information on the ethnicity of victims of burglary as this is a crime against a household rather than an individual victim. However, information is available from the CSEW on the ethnicity of adult respondent s living in households that have been burgled. In response to your request we have published these data (for the year ending March 2015) on the ONS website here:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/business-transparency/freedom-of-information/what-can-i-request/published-ad-hoc-data/crime/february-2016/ethnicity-of-adult-respondents-living-in-households-that-have-been-burgled.xls

You may also be interested in the statistical bulletin released by the Ministry of Justice on Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System. This publication compiles statistics from data sources across the Criminal Justice System (CJS) to give an overview of the experiences of different ethnic groups. The latest version of this bulletin is published here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/race-and-the-criminal-justice-system

For future reference, you do not need to use a Freedom of Information request to ask for data. It is usually quicker to simply email us at CrimeStatistics@ons.gov.uk and we will endeavour to help. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to ask.