National picture
This page traces youth remand disproportionality in England and Wales through the decisions that lead to it. It works at England and Wales level. The four charts are PRISM-R's own analysis of open data; they are distinct from the published headline statistics on the home page, and each is captioned with its source.
The road to remand
The Relative Rate Index compares the rate at which an ethnic group experiences a decision with the rate for White children. A value of one is parity; above one, the group is more likely to experience the decision. The cascade follows children through four decision points, from the first police contact to the court.
The road to remand: relative rate by ethnicity, four decision points
Children aged 10 to 17, England and Wales, year ending March 2025. An RRI of 1.0 represents parity with White children.
- Black
- Mixed
- Asian
- Other
- White baseline
The four groups do not follow one pattern. For Black children the disparity is widest at the first point of contact, a stop and search rate 2.40 times the White rate, and is lower at each later stage. For Asian children it runs the other way, from below parity at the policing stages to above it at the court. On these figures, much of the measured disparity is present before a child reaches the court.
PRISM-R analysis. Stop and search and arrest computed from Home Office Police powers and procedures, year ending March 2025. Remand and the pooled custodial sentencing estimate computed from YJB Youth Justice Statistics 2024-25. Retrieved May 2026. See the build manifest.
The groups do not follow one pattern
The four ethnic groups diverge across the cascade. For Black children the disparity is widest at the first point of contact: a stop and search rate 2.40 times the White rate. It is lower at each court stage, 1.92 at remand and 1.59 at pooled custodial sentencing. For Asian children the pattern runs the other way, rising from 0.60 at stop and search and 0.52 at arrest, both below parity, to 1.51 at remand and 1.38 at custodial sentencing.
These are distinct findings. PRISM-R reports them separately rather than as a single account of disproportionality.
Disparity appears before the court
Measurable disparity is present at stop and search and at arrest, for Black children and children of Mixed Heritage, before any court involvement. The disproportionality visible at remand is therefore not created at the court stage alone: a substantial part of it is already present in the policing decisions upstream. On these figures, much of the measured racial disparity is generated before a child reaches the court.
Child population and custodial remand
Black children are about 6% of the 10 to 17 population of England and Wales, and about 26% of children remanded to youth detention accommodation in the year ending March 2025. The bars below set each ethnic group's share of the child population against its share of custodial remand.
PRISM-R analysis. Child population: ONS Census 2021. Custodial remand, remand to youth detention accommodation: YJB Youth Justice Statistics 2024-25, year ending March 2025. Retrieved May 2026. See the build manifest.
How remand decisions divide
Not every child subject to a remand decision is held. Most are bailed; the rest are placed on community remand, remanded to local authority accommodation, or remanded to custody. The bars below show how remand decisions divided for each ethnic group in the year ending March 2025. The custodial remand share, the darkest segment, is larger for Black children and children of Mixed Heritage than for White children.
PRISM-R analysis of YJB Youth Justice Statistics 2024-25, year ending March 2025. Children in the Other category, and those of unknown ethnicity, are not shown: one cell for the Other category is suppressed under disclosure control, and unknown ethnicity is not a defined group. Retrieved May 2026. See the build manifest.
The pattern is corroborated independently. HM Chief Inspector of Prisons' thematic review Children on short-term remand (May 2026) cites the same figure, that 62% of children remanded to youth detention accommodation in the year ending March 2025 did not receive a custodial sentence, and reports that two in five children held in custody are now on remand, with nearly 100 children each year remanded only to be bailed or moved to local authority accommodation within two weeks.
Where stop-and-search disparity is highest
The cascade's first stage varies sharply by place. Across the 40 police force areas shown, the stop-and-search Relative Rate Index for Black children runs from 0.98 to 6.68, with a median of 2.38. The highest values are in forces with small Black child populations, where a modest number of searches produces a high rate against a small denominator; those values are real but less stable than the large-force figures. In 2 forces the Black search count falls below the disclosure threshold, so no value is shown.
Geographic variation in stop-and-search disparity. Each police force area is shaded by the RRI for Black children stopped and searched, year ending March 2025: the Black rate per 1,000 children divided by the White rate, both against the Census 2021 child population. Full interactive geographic exploration follows in the geographic explorer. PRISM-R analysis of Home Office Police powers and procedures open data; boundaries: ONS Open Geography portal. Retrieved May 2026. See the build manifest.