Information on the numbers of white and black and minority ethnic prisoners held in prison establishments in England and Wales at the end of December 2005 is drawn from data held in the prison IT system and was published in table 2.11 of the Offender Management Caseload Statistics Quarterly Brief for October-December 2005 which can be found at the following website:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/omcsq405.pdf
Comparable information about convicted criminals is not available.
The figures provided in the publication referred to have been drawn from administrative IT systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system, and although shown to the last individual, the figures may not be accurate to that level.