FOI reference: FOI-2024-2221
You asked
Per the Freedom of Information Act, I'd like to make some requests regarding age and ethnic-based information regarding criminal suspects. If possible, can these be organised into tables in a PDF file if possible?
What was the ethnicity of under-18s charged/convicted of murder for the most recent year (a second table but strictly for murders committed with knives would also be great)?
What is the ethnicity of those arrested nationwide for individual offenses (rape, burglary, robbery e.g.)?
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
The Office for National Statistics Centre for Crime and Justice produce figures on the levels and trends of crime in England and Wales primarily based on two sets of data: the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), and Police Recorded Crime (PRC) provided by the Home Office, including homicide data.
The CSEW is a survey of approximately 30,000 respondents per year which asks about people's experience of crime in the previous year. Annual crime estimates are produced from responses to the survey. Where respondents indicate that they have been a victim of crime, limited information about the perpetrators of those crimes is asked for. This can only be collected where victims know this information and are prepared to give it. Data is not complete enough for valid estimates about perpetrators to be produced beyond whether respondents knew, or had a relationship to them, for certain crime types.
PRC data is derived from victim reports to the police. It is provided to ONS in aggregate form only. We do not hold individual data records. The only aggregate information provided to us about perpetrators concerns homicides. This data is published in full in our Appendix tables: homicide in England and Wales. For example, tables 32 and 33 provide some data on the number of homicides by ethnic appearance of the principal suspect and victim.
We do not therefore hold and cannot publish or provide further data on the perpetrators of crime. We hold no data on people that are charged with any other type of crime.