FOI 3586-25 U18s with SEND Held in Custody Overnight
Request to Northamptonshire Police
The number of under 18s detained in custody overnight by your police force. Please provide the figures per calendar year for the following years: 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021.
For example: in 2023, 122 under 18s were detained in custody overnight.
The number of under 18s detained in custody overnight by your police force who were flagged as having special educational needs or disabilities
For example: in 2023, 122 under 18s were detained in custody overnight. Of this group, 15 were identified as having SEND
If it is not possible to provide figures broken down by year can you please collate the figures. For example: between 1st January 2021 and 31st December 2024, 700 under 18s were detained in custody overnight. Of this group, 150 were identified as having SEND
SEND definition: According to the Children and Families Act 2014, a child or young person has special educational needs if he or she has a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her.
A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she—has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions.
A child under compulsory school age has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she is likely to be within subsection (2) when of compulsory school age (or would be likely, if no special educational provision were made).
A child or young person does not have a learning difficulty or disability solely because the language (or form of language) in which he or she is or will be taught is different from a language (or form of language) which is or has been spoken at home. SOURCE: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/6/part/3/crossheading/special-educational-needs-etc
Overnight detention meaning: "The definition used for overnight was spending at least four hours in police custody between the hours of midnight and 8am" SOURCE:
https://howardleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Overnight_in_police_cells_final_summary.pdf
Response
Unfortunately, Northamptonshire Police are unable to provide you with the information requested because it is not held in an easily retrievable format. Compliance with your request would require our analysts to manually review a minimum of 1 797 occurrences of under 18s held detained in custody. We estimate this would take approximately 3 minutes per record which would exceed the appropriate cost limit of £450.
Accordingly, please accept this Refusal Notice under s12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (The Act).
We always strive to provide the highest level of service that we can with the finite resources at our disposal. Under our Duty to offer advice and assistance to help you revise your request as outlined in s16 of The Act, data could be provided for the number of under 18’s detained in custody overnight and broken down for your requested time period. However, please note further exemptions may apply.