BAME defendants are less likely to enter guilty pleas, in most types of offences. The Relative Rate Index analysis of 2014/15 data found that: Black and Asian men were more than one and a half times more likely to enter a ‘not guilty’ plea than White men. Mixed ethnic men were also more likely to plead not guilty. Black, Asian, Mixed ethnic and Chinese/Other ethnic women were all more likely than White women to enter not guilty pleas at Crown Court, with Asian women more than one and a half times more likely to do so. While there were too few cases to examine plea decisions for young women, young men from a Black, Asian or Mixed ethnic background were more likely to enter a not guilty plea compared to their White counterparts. Lack of trust The primary reason for this difference in plea decisions is a lack of trust in the Criminal Justice System among BAME communities. This makes BAME defendants less likely to cooperate with the police or trust the advice of legal aid solicitors, who can be seen as part of the ‘system’. At the same time, Black, Asian and Mixed ethnic defendants are all more likely to request legal advice in police station than their white counterparts. Instead, it is that many BAME defendants neither trust the advice that they are given, nor believe they will receive a fair hearing from magistrates. In some cases, this means defendants pleading not guilty and then electing for a jury trial at the Crown Court, rather than be tried in a Magistrate’s Court, despite the higher sentencing powers available at the Crown Court. The suggestions as part of this section were that: The Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Legal Aid Agency should work with the Law Society and Bar Council to experiment with different approaches to explaining legal rights and options to defendants. Deferred prosecutions In England and Wales, an innovative scheme named Operation Turning Point was piloted from November 2011 to July 2014. It was designed with racial disparities in plea decisions in mind, and saw offenders participate without the requirement that they first admit an offence. Defendants were given the opportunity to go through a structured intervention, such as drug treatment, instead of facing criminal charges. The latest published information indicates that almost as many BAME offenders took part in the scheme as White