Information requested on arrests is not collected centrally.
The following table shows data extracted from the court proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform in respect of the number of persons proceeded against and found guilty of incitement to racial hatred offences for 2004 and 2005. Prior to 2004, data for these offences were collected as part of a miscellaneous group of offences which cannot be separately identified on the database.
Proceeded against Found guilty Statute Offence 2004 2005 2004 2005 Public Order Act 1986 S.18 Use of words or behaviour or display material intended or likely to stir up racial hatred 34 15 2 1 Public Order Act 1986 S 19 Publishing or distributing written material intended or likely to stir up racial hatred. 1 13 — 6 Public Order Act 1986 S.21 Distributing, showing or playing a recording intended or likely to stir up racial hatred. — — — 1 Public Order Act 1986 S.22 Broadcasting or including a programme in programme service intended or likely to stir up racial hatred. — 2 1 1 Public Order Act 1986 S.23 Possessing a racially inflammatory piece of material — 1 — — Total 35 31 3 9 1 These data are on the principal offence basis. 2 Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.