1. Main facts and figures
- in the year ending March 2019, the rate of self-harm by White young people in custody was 2.75 times the rate of all other ethnic groups combined
- for every 100 White young people in custody, there was an average of 19.8 incidents of self-harm per month
- for every 100 young people from all other ethnic groups combined, there were 7.2 incidents of self-harm per month
- in every year from April 2010 to March 2019, the rate of self-harm was higher for White young people compared with people from all other ethnic groups combined
2. Things you need to know
What the data measures
The data shows the number of incidents when young people in custody deliberately harmed themselves. It also shows the rate of incidents for every 100 young people in custody.
Self-harm is any act where a young person deliberately harms themselves, regardless of how they do it, what their intent is, or how badly they are hurt.
The data includes young people held in:
- young offender institutions
- secure children’s homes
- secure training centres
‘Young people’ are 10 to 17 years old. The data may also include some 18 year olds who remained in youth custody for a short time.
Numbers and rates have been rounded to 1 decimal point, but have been worked out with unrounded figures.
How self-harm rates are calculated
The rate shown is the average number of self-harm incidents for every 100 young people in custody per month, based on 12 months of data.
The ethnic groups used in the data
Data is shown for 2 ethnic groups:
- White – White ethnic groups (including White British and White ethnic minorities)
- Other – all other ethnic groups
This is because the number of young people involved in self-harm incidents was too small to make reliable generalisations about specific ethnic groups.
Young people in custody report their own ethnicity. The data does not include young people in custody whose ethnicity was not known.
Methodology
Read the detailed methodology document (PDF opens in a new window or tab) for the data on this page.
Some young people may be involved in more than one self-harm incident, in which case they will be included in the data more than once.
There are more White young people in custody compared with other ethnic groups. You can read more about how group size affects the reliability of data.
3. By ethnicity
| Ethnicity | Rate | Average population per month | Average number of self harm incidents per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| White | 19.8 | 578.0 | 114.7 |
| Other than White | 7.2 | 533.3 | 38.5 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Self-harm by young people in custody By ethnicity Summary
The data shows that, on average per month:
- there were 19.8 incidents of self-harm per 100 White young people in custody in the year ending March 2019
- there were 7.2 incidents of self-harm per 100 young people in custody from all other ethnic groups combined
4. By ethnicity over time
| White | Other than White | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time | White Rate | White Average Population per month | White Average number of self harm incidents per month | Other than White Rate | Other than White Average Population per month | Other than White Average number of self harm incidents per month |
| 2010/11 | 5.5 | 1,911.4 | 105.3 | 1.3 | 971.2 | 12.9 |
| 2011/12 | 7.3 | 1,727.7 | 125.9 | 1.6 | 1,039.8 | 16.9 |
| 2012/13 | 7.8 | 1,381.3 | 107.5 | 1.3 | 860.8 | 11.4 |
| 2013/14 | 9.5 | 1,025.9 | 97.0 | 2.0 | 628.3 | 12.7 |
| 2014/15 | 10.5 | 866.1 | 91.0 | 3.2 | 549.8 | 17.8 |
| 2015/16 | 12.4 | 766.4 | 95.3 | 3.8 | 524.0 | 20.2 |
| 2016/17 | 12.8 | 653.7 | 83.6 | 4.4 | 509.0 | 22.5 |
| 2017/18 | 19.8 | 656.9 | 130.3 | 3.4 | 527.1 | 17.9 |
| 2018/19 | 19.8 | 578.0 | 114.7 | 7.2 | 533.3 | 38.5 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity over time’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity over time’ (CSV)
Summary of Self-harm by young people in custody By ethnicity over time Summary
The data shows that, in the 9 years from April 2010 to March 2019:
- the rate of self-harm has been higher for White young people in custody compared with those from all other ethnic groups combined every year
- the rate for White people went up from 5.5 to 19.8 self-harm incidents per 100 young people in custody
- the rate for people from all other ethnic groups combined went up from 1.3 to 7.2 self-harm incidents per 100 young people
In the most recent 2 years, from April 2017 to March 2019:
- the rate of self harm for White young people stayed the same
- the rate for young people from all other ethnic groups combined more than doubled, from 3.4 to 7.2 incidents per 100 people
5. Data sources
Source
Youth justice statistics: 2018 to 2019
Type of data
Administrative data
Type of statistic
National Statistics
Publisher
Ministry of Justice
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
The data is used by the government to develop, monitor and evaluate criminal justice policy for young offenders in England and Wales.
6. Download the data
This file contains the following: measure, ethnicity, year, value, numerator, denominator