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How do 2024 riot arrest and charge figures compare with 2011 disorder?

After the August 2011 violence police made 4,105 arrests, according to a Home Office report.

Flora Thompson
Monday 12 August 2024 17:43 BST
A burnt-out police car in Woolwich after the 2011 riots (Alamy/PA)
A burnt-out police car in Woolwich after the 2011 riots (Alamy/PA)

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Almost 1,000 arrests have been made since riots and disorder broke out around the country this summer, and more than 500 people have been charged.

According to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, as of Monday, 975 people had been arrested and 546 had been charged.

Several people have already appeared in court and some have been sentenced but many prosecutions remain in progress and other cases are still being investigated.

Government reports published at the time of the August 2011 riots show the 2024 tally is yet to reach that for the last similar period of unrest more than a decade ago.

Home Office">

After the August 2011 riots police made 4,105 arrests, according to a Home Office report published a month after the disorder broke out.

By October that year, 1,984 people had appeared in court, the document said.

This had risen to 3,103 a year after the unrest, a Ministry of Justice report published in 2012 said.

The 10 police forces to make the most arrests over the 2011 trouble were: Metropolitan Police (2,467), West Midlands (637), Greater Manchester (326), Nottinghamshire (121), Leicestershire (98), Merseyside (79), West Yorkshire (70), Hertfordshire (62), Avon and Somerset (55) and Thames Valley (45).

Of the 3,960 arrests made by the top 10 forces, where gender was known (3,881 cases), 89% were male and 11% female.

Where age was known (3,942 cases), 26% were aged between 10 and 17, 46% were 18 to 24, and 28% were 25 or over.

Where ethnicity was known (3,836 cases), 40% were white, 39% black, 11% had mixed ethnicity, 8% were Asian and 2% were classed as “other”.

Of the 3,103 who had appeared in court by August 10 2012, 89% were male with 27% aged 10 to 17 and 26% aged 18 to 20. A total of 2,138 had been found guilty and been sentenced, with 1,405 handed immediate jail terms, the average length of which was 17.1 months.

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