Race and Imprisonment

Abstract

When the system of ethnic monitoring was first adopted by the Prisons Department in England in 1985, it was revealed that those who were identified as black constituted 8 per cent of the prison population although they only made up approximately 1 per cent of the general population. Since that time the proportion of both male and female black prisoners has grown steadily, such that by 1995 11 per cent of the male prison population and 20 per cent of the female population were classified as black. Ethnic minority groups currently make up approximately 5.5 per cent of the total population in England and Wales but constitute some 17 per cent of the male prison population and 24 per cent of the female prison population. The racial disproportionality among those incarcerated is particularly pronounced amongst the remand population (Home Office, 1996b).