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Ethnic differences in prisoners. 1: criminality and psychiatric morbidity
Jeremy Coid1, Ann Petruckevitch, Paul Bebbington
1Department of Psychological Medicine, St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. J.W.Coid@qmul.ac.uk
Background:
In England and Wales, persons of African-Caribbean origin are more likely to be both imprisoned and admitted to secure hospitals.
Aims:
To estimate population-based rates of imprisonment in different ethnic groups, and compare criminal behaviour and psychiatric morbidity.
Method:
We examined Home Office data on all persons in prison, and carried out a two-stage cross-sectional survey of 3142 remanded and sentenced, male and female, prisoners in all penal establishments in England and Wales in 1997.
Results:
We confirmed high rates of imprisonment for Black people and lower rates for South Asians. Different patterns of offending and lower prevalence of psychiatric morbidity were observed in Black prisoners.
Conclusions:
Despite increased risks of imprisonment, African-Caribbeans show less psychiatric morbidity than White prisoners. This contrasts with the excess of African-Caribbeans in secure hospitals, an inconsistency possibly in part due to the effects of ethnic groups on admission procedures.