What we can't tell you · Partial
What is the religion of victims and suspects of crime?
Partial Official data answers part of the question: some categories, some years, some geographies or one stage of a process.
Why
Police-recorded crime carries no victim or suspect religion except the targeted-religion field for religious hate crime. The Crime Survey for England and Wales records respondent religion, and ONS publishes victimisation by religion in the annual supplementary tables (confirmed in ONS FOI-2024-2432, 17 December 2024); the Home Office hate crime appendix tables 12, 16 and 17 give survey-measured hate crime victimisation by ethnic group and religion. Suspect religion is not published at any stage except the prison population.
What is known
What is not known
- Victim religion for offences recorded by police (other than hate crime)
- Suspect religion at any police or court stage
Who holds the data
- ONS (Crime Survey)
- Home Office
- Police forces in England and Wales
Would a Freedom of Information request help?
Unlikely. Religion is not recorded against general offences, so the answer would be "not recorded"; survey tables are already published.
Privacy and disclosure restrictions
Survey estimates for small religious groups are suppressed or flagged; hate-crime tables exclude forces with quality problems.
Official sources checked
- https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/crimestatisticsbyethnicityorreligion2012to2024
- https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesannualsupplementarytables
Last reviewed 2026-09-02. Availability changes; if a publication now answers this question, challenge the classification below.