Arrests by ethnicity in North Wales

Civil lobbying charity Liberty, which campaigns for justice and equality, accused the police of acting unjustly towards ethnic minorities and called on the Government to reduce police powers.

North Wales Police state caution needs to be taken when reviewing the data.

Home Office figures show 77 arrests of black people were made in North Wales in 2020-21.

This equated to an estimated 51.4 arrests per 1,000 black people in the area, based on population figures from the 2011 census.

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In contrast, there were just 19.1 arrests per 1,000 white people, meaning a black person was 2.7 times more likely to be arrested.

Arrest rates were down from 2019-20 – before the coronavirus pandemic led to a fall in overall crime – when 132.9 arrests per 1,000 black people and 20.5 per 1,000 white people were made.

However, this is still considerably lower than the national rate of arrests. In England and Wales, black people were 3.3 times more likely to be arrested than white people in 2020-21.

Emmanuelle Andrews, policy and campaigns manager at Liberty, said the figures "highlight the injustices that black communities face across the criminal justice system".

Ms Andrews said: "The police should not be handed more powers, and their existing ones must be rolled back."

But the Home Office says "more is being done in policing than ever before to ensure everyone is treated fairly and without prejudice".

A spokesperson added: "We now have the most diverse police force in history and have extensive safeguards in place to hold the police accountable."

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In North Wales, 20.0 stop and searches per 1,000 black people were carried out, compared to 8.3 per 1,000 white people.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "Every knife taken off our streets is a potential life saved, with 16,000 dangerous weapons removed from the streets and almost 81,000 arrests made last year because of stop and search.

"No one should be stopped because of their race, but, tragically, data shows that young black men are disproportionately more likely to be the victims of knife crime."

The B.A.M.E. population of North Wales is comparatively small relative to other areas in England & Wales (2.5 per cent of total resident population), and this is typically reflected in policing activity figures.

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North Wales Police said: "Any potential disproportionality in small volumes should never be summarily dismissed, but small volumes can restrict our ability to draw meaningful insight from some datasets, and prevent our ability to state with confidence any clear conclusions with regards to disproportionality.

"It should also be noted that given the size of B.A.M.E. populations, policing activity rates by ethnic group can swing significantly over time, and that relatively small volume changes can lead to significant rate changes. Caution therefore needs to be taken when reviewing this type of data, and this is noted throughout the document."

The force also pointed out that population estimates are based on permanent residents of an area, and do not include visitors, commuters or any other person who is not resident in an area.

This presents a "significant issue" for analysis of rates per 1000 population, given the considerable number of visitors to North Wales each year. The influx of visitors and tourists significantly changes the population profile from that of residents, particularly in the summer, and is likely to make policing activity rates per population misleading.

North Wales Police said: "The on-street population would seem a fairer comparator for use in analyses such as those contained in this report, but unfortunately this information is not available. Therefore, resident population is used as a proxy indicator, but rates per 1000 population should be treated with caution and considered estimates only.

"In the case of populations by ethnicity, which is still based on the 2011 Census as the latest available official figures, it is further likely that the populations have changed in the past 10 years, and that these changes are not accounted for in the ethnicity figures used for comparative purposes, meaning additional caution is required."