The indications of work to date are that black people's experience of criminal justice in the United Kingdom is very different from that of white people. One consequence of this is that the number of black people in Prison Department establishments is disproportionately greater than their representation in the population as as a whole. However, the process by which this comes about is a complex one, reflecting not only the way that black people are dealt with by different criminal justice agencies, but also their position in society at large. The available evidence shows that, while some differential sentencing cannot be ruled out as an explanation for the disproportional representation of black people in the prison population, what seems to be more important is what happens prior to sentence, in that black people are differentially apprehended, charged and brought to court in the first instance. In view of this it is not surprising that relations between black people and the police are often troubled. This article highlights the interdependence of the criminal justice process and the way that decisions taken at one stage of the process can affect subsequent decisions, and thus be responsible for black people perceiving the whole system as discriminatory. (Author abstract)