Press Release: 24 February 2005

Racist incidents in Kent hit lowest level for five years

Racially or religiously aggravated offences in Kent decreased by 12 per cent, between 2003 and 2004, against a national 13 per cent increase according to the latest Home Office figures issued today.

The Home Office statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2004 report on the number of racist incidents, police stop and searches, arrests and cautions, and police complaints.

Kent Police, working with local authority partners, has demonstrated encouraging progress in reducing numbers of racist incidents to the lowest level since 1997. Kent Police saw a 13 per cent reduction in racist incidents while the majority of other forces reflected a national increase of 7 per cent.

There is a disparity between the stop and search rates for white and minority ethnic communities although when searches undertaken at Kent ports are excluded from the figures the difference is much less marked. These statistics are all based on 'census' population figures and independent Home Office research has indicated that this may be misleading. This is why Kent Police are actively engaged with academic and research institutions in trying to establish 'actual' or 'street' population figures as part of our commitment to fairness and equality.

The number of stop and searches under the Terrorism Act 2000 in Kent has reduced significantly with only thirteen occurring in 2003/4.

The figures for arrests by Kent Police show that 90 per cent of people arrested were white (84% nationally), four per cent were black (9% nationally) and four per cent were Asian (5% nationally).

Only eleven of the 344 complaints received by Kent Police were about racially discriminatory behaviour, none of which were sustained.