BBC Social Affairs Correspondent Reeta Chakrabati: "The report will renew the debate over racism in the justice system"

People of African and Caribbean descent are around five times more likely to be stopped and searched as white people. They also make up a much higher proportion in prison than might be expected in the general population.

The figures will renew the debate over whether the justice system is racist or whether black people are over-represented for other socio-economic reasons.

Director of policy at the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, Paul Cavadino, said the figures were startling.

"The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that black people who offend are more likely to end up in prison than comparable white offenders," he said.

Glen Smyth and first Mike Franklin debate the figures on BBC Radio 4's Today programme

Mike Franklin, of the Lambeth Police Community Consultative Group in south London, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the report showed "the police are getting it wrong".

But Glen Smyth, of the Metropolitan Police Federation, told Today that stop and search "is a very effective tool for dealing with street robbers, drug dealers, terrorists and violent knife offenders".

Little change from last year

The report, called Race and the Criminal Justice System, is a digest of figures produced by the 43 police forces in England and Wales. Despite the climate of concern over policing and community relations, it shows little change from last year.

Nationally they are five times more likely to stopped than whites but in one, Leicestershire, the figure is seven times higher.

Black people make up 12% of the prison population compared with 2% of the population as a whole.

In the Metropolitan Police area in London, the figures equate to 181 out of 1,000 black people living there were stopped and searched, compared with 38 out of every 1,000 white people.

In the same area, 19% of white people are cautioned after arrest, compared with only 12% of blacks, who are far more likely to face active prosecution.