FOI reference: FOI-2024-2203
You asked
Lipscombe prepared a briefing paper looking at the homicide statistics for England and Wales where they grouped victims by age, gender, race and location.
Can I ask for the equivalent information to be made available but applying the categorisation to the offenders not the victims?
Specifically, looking at convictions of homicide (ideally separated by sex) could you please share the race, age and sex of the offenders.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We publish a release called 'Homicide in England and Wales' which analyses data from the Home Office Homicide Index. The Home Office Homicide Index contains record-level information about each homicide recorded by police in England and Wales.
Tables 31 and 32 of our Appendix tables: homicide in England and Wales published alongside this release provides the numbers of principal suspects convicted of homicide by the age, sex and ethnic appearance of the principal suspect. Table 32 does not split the data down by year, as three-year averages are used to calculate homicide rates by ethnicity because of the low numbers of victims in some of the groups. The latest table is combined data from year ending March 2021 to year ending March 2023. As the table looks at principal suspects, the figures are subject to revision as cases are dealt with by the police and by the courts, or as further information becomes available.
As these data are collected by the Home Office it may be helpful to contact them directly if you have any further questions about the data. They can be contacted via email at CrimeandPoliceStats@homeoffice.gov.uk.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) are primarily responsible for data on offenders. They publish Statistics each quarter which may be of use to you. They also publish data on prosecutions, convictions and sentencing outcomes by offence code in their Outcomes by Offence data tool: December 2023 tables. Using this tool, you can filter by offence and ethnicity.
The Ministry of Justice may be able to help you further if you have any questions. They can be contacted at data.access@justice.gov.uk.