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Nationally, black children and young people are three times more likely to be arrested, twice as likely to be cautioned and five times more likely to be serving a custodial sentence than would be expected from their numbers in the general population. In contrast, Asian children and young people aged 10-17 are substantially under-represented in arrests, cautions and youth custody. Black and mixed-parentage young males and females are very considerably overrepresented in penal remands and detention and training orders compared with other groups. Local studies of youth justice have found that over-representation and different or discriminatory treatment vary by youth offending team area. The over-representation of black males and females in the youth justice system is longstanding, however. For example, during the 1970s and 1980s, black children and young people constituted over a third of detention centre and Borstal populations in the south of England.