Croydon Arrest Numbers Down Across Most Ethnicities

Arrest numbers in Croydon have decreased over the last five years across all types of ethnicities. 

There were a total of 9,207 arrests in 2015, which fell to 8,109 in 2019. It reached its lowest point of the five years the year prior, 2018, when arrest figures stood at 6,444.

Between 2015 and 2019, in Croydon’s Asian community, there was the greatest decrease in arrests of Pakistanis, from 174 to 114 annually. Arrests of Indians fell from 203 to 167. People from other Asian backgrounds were arrested six times less in 2019 than in 2015, from 364 to 358. Arrests of Bangladeshis fell from 56 to 33 between 2015 and 2018, but it rose again in 2019, to 69.

There was a significant drop for those of Black Caribbean heritage in the borough, from 1,292 to 892 over five years, a drop of 31 per cent. Black African arrests also dropped, from 850 to 785, while those classed as any other Black background also fell, from 803 in 2015 to 712 in 2019. 

For White and Black Caribbean mixed-race people in Croydon, arrest figures fell by over 25 per cent, from 413 to 305.

There was a six per cent drop in arrests of White British people in Croydon, from 3,039 to 2,866. White Irish arrests fell from 131 to 103, and arrests of white people from other backgrounds dropped from 966 to 920.

Arrests of Chinese people dropped from 55 to 40, and in cases where the ethnicity was not stated, it also dropped, from 293 to 272. There was a small rise in the Gypsy or Irish Traveller community; no arrests were made between 2015 and 2017, but one in 2018 and 2 in 2019.

The data was sourced by media literacy The Student View following a Freedom of Information request to the Metropolitan Police.