FOI 17661-25 - Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking

Request:

1. Please provide the number of cases of modern slavery and human trafficking reported to the force for each calendar year between January 1st 2019 and December 31st 2024.

2. Please disaggregate data according to the following information:
The crime outcome of the offences (for example, this includes but is not limited to outcomes such as 'cautioned', 'charged/summonsed', evidential difficulties (victim does not support investigation), no suspect identified, 'Not in public interest (police), Not in public interest (CPS)' and any other outcomes recorded),

3. The age of victims recorded, either adult (18 years or older) or child (17 years old or younger).

For the purposes of this request, 'victim' is a person who has reported having been a victim of this crime.

Response:

All crime occurrences searched between 1st January 2019 and 31st December 2024 for offences of:

• Arrange or facilitate the travel of another person with a view to exploitation
• Breach a slavery and trafficking risk or prevention order
• Commit offence of kidnapping or false imprisonment with intention of committing human trafficking offence
• Hold a person in slavery or servitude
• Require a person to perform forced or compulsory labour

There may be multiple victims recorded for the same crime occurrence. This means that the total number of victims and the total number of occurrence outcomes for each year does not match.

Outcome: 

Age of Victim: 

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Northamptonshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt within the provisions of the Act), to provide the applicant with a Notice which:

1. states the fact that an exemption has been applied
2. specifies the exemption in question, and
3. states why the exemption applies (if that would not otherwise be apparent)

Northamptonshire Police cannot provide any further information relevant to this request as the duty under Section 1(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply by virtue of the following exemption:

Section 30(1)(a) - Investigations and Proceedings Conducted by Public Authorities

This exemption applies because the information you have requested is held or has been held for the purposes of a criminal investigation.

Section 30 is a qualified, class-based exemption, meaning that I am required to conduct a public interest test to balance the legitimate interests of the public in knowing the information against the interests of non-disclosure.

Public Interest Test

Reasons for Disclosure

There is public interest in knowing that the police investigate potential offences, especially when they are serious. This shows that Northamptonshire Police take their duty to investigate crimes seriously and will increase public confidence and understanding of our work. It will help the public to see how the police use public funds.

Reasons against Disclosure

Information relating to an investigation will only be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act where there is a strong public interest favouring disclosure. Where investigations are active, releasing details may hinder the progress of the investigations and any proceedings arising from it. This would mean that offenders are not brought to justice and the public are placed at greater risk of crime. Disclosing information may make suspects aware that a case is being actively investigated, which would enable them to adapt their behaviour to evade detection. To release any information which could be used to undermine prosecutions or aid offenders to continue to commit crime is not in the public interest.

Disclosing sensitive information would suggest that Northamptonshire Police do not take their responsibility to safeguard and appropriately handle information supplied to them as part of investigations seriously. This would undermine the confidence and relationship between the force and the public or others involved in the investigation.

Balancing Test

There is a public interest in the disclosure of information to reassure the public that Northamptonshire Police effectively investigate possible crimes. However, disclosure of information relating to ongoing investigations would reduce their effectiveness, allowing criminals to go undetected, and may undermine future proceedings that arise from the investigations. This would enable more criminals to go unobstructed and place the public at risk. Therefore, it is for these reasons that I believe the balance lies in favour of non-disclosure of the information.

In addition, Northamptonshire Police can neither confirm nor deny whether it holds any other information as the duty in Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply by virtue of the following exemption:

Section 23(5) - Information Supplied by, or Concerning, Certain Security Bodies

Under S23(5), the duty to confirm or deny does not arise if, or to the extent that, compliance with Section 1(1)(a) would involve the disclosure of any information (whether or not already recorded) which was directly or indirectly supplied to the public authority by, or relates to, any of the bodies specified in Subsection (3). This is an absolute exemption and a public interest test is not required.

The numerical data presented in this response is an unaudited snapshot of unpublished data sourced from "live" systems and is subject to the interpretation of the original request by the individual extracting the data.

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.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when the data is used.

If you decide to write an article/use the enclosed data, we ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.