FOI 940-25 Crime statistics
Request:
1. Crime Reporting and Outcomes: For each calendar year commencing with 2014, please provide an itemized breakdown of the following:
- The aggregate number of reported criminal offenses.
- Of the aforementioned reported offenses, the number subjected to formal investigation.
- Of the offenses investigated, the number subsequently referred to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration of charges.
- Of the offenses referred for prosecution, the number that culminated in a conviction in a court of law.
2. Offense Categorization and Suspect Demographics: For the data furnished in response to question 1, please provide a further disaggregation by:
- Statutory categorization of the offense (e.g., offenses against the person, offenses against property, etc.).
- Recorded ethnicity/race of the suspected perpetrator(s).
- Age range of the suspected perpetrator(s).
3. Case Closure Rates: Please specify the proportion of reported offenses that are closed without the filing of formal charges. Further, please provide a breakdown of the principal reasons for such closures (e.g., insufficiency of evidence, withdrawal of complaint by the aggrieved party).
Response:
Northamptonshire Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not for the production of statistical information for Freedom Of Information responses.
Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Northamptonshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:
(a) states that fact,
(b) specifies the exemption in question and
(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
The exemption applicable to the information requested is:
Section 12(1) – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit
Some of the information you are requesting is not held by Northamptonshire Police in any reasonably retrievable form. The only means of establishing information regarding the number of offences referred to the Crown Prosecution Service would be by way of manual examination of each detected crime record. Our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record or within specified fields. Where relevant information is held deeper in the record, or outside of a specified field, a manual assessment is usually required to retrieve that information.
It is my assessment that the cost of providing you with the information requested would exceed the 'appropriate level' as set out in the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.
My assessment is that it would cost 105,000 (approximate number of records) x 5 minutes each (minimum) = over 8,750 hours at £25 per hour to respond to your request, which exceeds the 'appropriate limit' (currently £450 for 'prescribed costs').
In view of the above, and in accordance with the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please take this letter as a Refusal Notice.
You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the costs shown above and is then within the 'appropriate limit' shown above. (I cannot think of a means to refine the request in order to provide the information you are seeking) but if you would like some further information about how to proceed with your request then please contact:
Where section 12 applies to a request, it should apply to the whole request, even where only one question would supersede the cost limit. The guidance from the ICO is that the decision on what is important is a matter for the requester and it is not for a public authority to assume what information they would like to receive inside the cost limit.
Information on convictions i.e. results at Court, are held by His Majesty’s Court Service.
All recorded crime undergoes a ‘formal investigation’. It is recorded and then reviewed as per relevant Crime investigation policy then filed or allocated for secondary investigation.
Freedom Of Information legislation concerns recorded information within an organisation, public bodies are not obliged to work out data/proportions to facilitate such requests.