- Black people were over twice as likely to be arrested as White people — 20.4 arrests per 1,000 Black people vs. 9.4 per 1,000 White people. UK
Executive summary
The claim that “Black people were over twice as likely to be arrested as White people — 20.4 arrests per 1,000 Black people vs. 9.4 per 1,000 White people” is reported by multiple secondary sources summarising UK official data; one dataset headline gives 20.4 vs 9.4 arrests per 1,000 and a 2.2× disparity [1]. The government’s Ethnicity Facts and Figures pages and official arrest datasets supply the underlying arrest-rate tables and note both the higher arrest rate for Black people and cautions about interpreting rates from census-derived denominators [2] [3].
1. Arrest rates as reported: a simple ratio, not an explanation
Official and widely cited summaries show higher arrest rates for people identified as Black than for those identified as White — figures cited in analysis pieces list 20.4 arrests per 1,000 for Black people and 9.4 per 1,000 for White people, which is a 2.2-fold difference [1]. The government’s Ethnicity Facts and Figures site explicitly states the relative-likelihood comparison — “black people were over 2 times as likely to be arrested as white people” — while also offering downloadable tables with rates by area and sex [2] [3].
2. What the official sources say about limits of these numbers
Government pages warn that using census population estimates to compute arrest rates has limits and that “problems using Census data to work out rates” affect interpretation; the site recommends reading guidance on relative likelihoods before drawing causal conclusions [2]. The CSV datasets underpinning the headline rates are publicly available but come with caveats about comparability across areas and age groups [3].
3. Geography, age and policing practice change the picture
Arrest rates vary dramatically by police force area and by sex and age. For example, the Ethnicity Facts and Figures notes Dorset and Warwickshire have low overall arrest rates while in some local areas — such as the Metropolitan Police area — minority groups make up a larger share of arrests; black men in some breakdowns were 2.4 times as likely to be arrested as white men with 38.2 vs 16.0 arrests per 1,000 respectively [2]. These local patterns show national ratios hide wide geographic and demographic variation [2] [3].
4. Stop-and-search interaction: disproportionate stops, mixed arrest outcomes
Separate government stop-and-search data show much larger disparities in stops: examples include 24.5 searches per 1,000 Black people versus 5.9 per 1,000 White people in historical national figures, and in later policing reports young Black men being stopped at far higher rates (for males aged 18–34, 141 stops per 1,000 for Black vs 26 per 1,000 for White in one release) [4] [5]. Official analyses of stop outcomes report that people identified as Black or mixed/other had a slightly higher arrest rate following stop-and-search (about 15.9%) than White people (about 13.9%) in the year ending 2023, complicating any simple cause-and-effect story between stops and arrests [6] [5].
5. Alternative framings: targeting versus underlying offending or demographics
Published commentary and compilations draw two competing interpretations from the same numbers. One view — emphasised by independent bodies and charities — treats the disproportionate stop and arrest rates as evidence of discriminatory policing and profiling given high “no further action” rates after searches [7] [8]. Another perspective, reflected in parliamentary and criminal-justice summaries, points to differences in offence types, local crime patterns, age structures and plea behaviour as partial explanations for over-representation in arrests and convictions [9] [10]. Both perspectives appear in the material provided [7] [9].
6. Data on what happens after arrest: convictions and “resultant” rates differ
Summary sources show that higher arrest rates do not straightforwardly translate into higher conviction rates for Black defendants; one dataset reported White defendants had a higher conviction rate than Black defendants in recent years, suggesting differences in charges, evidence or plea patterns [1] [9]. Official stop-and-search releases also show variation in the proportion of searches that end in arrest by ethnicity, with no single ethnic group always having the highest resultant arrest rate across age bands [6].
7. Journalistic takeaways and what’s missing from public reporting
The available government datasets and reputable aggregators confirm the headline 20.4 vs 9.4 arrest-rate figures and the 2.2× disparity [1] [2]. The sources also explicitly warn about denominators and vary by area, age and sex [2] [3]. What the provided sources do not settle is the causal mix of factors — extent of bias in individual officers, neighbourhood crime differences, socio-economic drivers, or judicial and charging decisions — so any definitive claim about why the disparity exists is not established in the material reviewed here (not found in current reporting).
If you want, I can extract the original government table rows for the national arrest-rate calculation and the stop-and-search breakdowns so you can see the exact denominators and area-by-area variation yourself [3] [4].