The Ethnic Origin of Women Serving a Prison Sentence

Data on ethnicity have been a feature of the prison statistics since 1986. The 1988 figures suggest that women of West Indian/African origin make up 20 per cent of the sentenced female prison population and 40 per cent of the drug offenders within it. Data from a survey of 25 per cent of the female prison population show that these figures are distorted by the presence of many women ordinarily resident overseas. When they are excluded the proportion of women of West Indian/African origin is much smaller and they are not over-represented among drug offenders in prison. Inclusion of nationality data would increase the usefulness of the prison statistics in ethnic monitoring.