Shoplifting incidents 75/24
FOI Reference: 75/24
Request:
1) The number of shoplifting incidents reported to your police force in the following calendar years – 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 (one figure for each year please).
2) The number of times an officer or representative from your police force attended in person to a reported incident of shoplifting in the following calendar years – 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 (one figure for each year please).
Clarification:
Question
Are you referring to incidents or crimes? Please note an incident is different from a crime. An incident is a record of contact made to a police force by an individual/member of public (usually via a 999 or 101 call) and a crime is where the threshold has been met for the police force to deem that a criminal offence has occurred as defined by law.
Answer
I am referring to incidents.
Response:
Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.
I can confirm that the cost of determining whether any information relative to questions 1 and 2 of this request is or isn’t held is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond therefore we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12 (2) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.
Where exemptions are relied upon Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Dyfed Powys 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 following exemption has been applied to the whole of the information you have requested:
Section 12(2) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit
Section 12(2) states: “…Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.”
The cost of determining what information is held, if any, relevant to questions 1 and 2 of your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the “appropriate level” as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. It is estimated that it would exceed 18 hours (i.e. minimum of 15,603 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043244.htm
The Freedom of Information Department has been advised that the information in respect of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. Therefore, in order to establish what information, if any, is held in relation to questions 1 and 2 of the request would require the individual interrogation of all incidents under the category of ‘theft shopifting’ over the time frame specified.
It has been established that for the period as specified within the request (i.e. 2013 – 2023) there are a total 93,670 incidents that would require researching. It has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to research a single incident for relevance to question 1 and 2 of your request as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.
2013 = 7,246 incidents @ 10 minutes per incident = 1208 hours
2014 = 6,187 incidents @ 10 minutes per incident = 1031 hours
2015 = 6,552 incidents @ 10 minutes per incident = 1092 hours
2016 = 6,794 incidents @ 10 minutes per incident = 1132 hours
2017 = 7,177 incidents @ 10 minutes per incident = 1186 hours
2018 = 7,067 incidents @ 10 minutes per incident = 1178 hours
2019 = 6,114 incidents @ 10 minutes per incident = 1019 hours
2020 = 3,832 incidents @ 10 minutes per incident = 639 hours
2021 = 3,927 incidents @ 10 minutes per incident = 655 hours
2022 = 4,507 incidents @ 10 minutes per incident = 751 hours
2023 = 2,284 incidents @ 10 minutes per incident = 381 hours
2023 = 31,983 incidents @ 10 minutes per incident = 5,331 hours *
Total of 15,603 hours to complete task
Please note: In the above time estimate for each year the total number of incidents were refined by ‘Crime Type’, e.g. C-Theft, to produce the figures. Further manual interrogation would be required to determine those related specifically to shoplifting offences.
Furthermore, due to the implementation of a new records management system we are currently unable to refine the figures as above from 21/05/2023, hence the two sets of figures for 2023. The figures marked “*” are the total number of incidents after 12/05/2023.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for the WHOLE of this request under Section 17(5) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or section 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact.
You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the time shown above to fall within the 18 hours, however with due regard to the time estimate provided above it is unlikely that refining your request will fall under the 18 hours as the same method and format will have to be undertaken. Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact the Freedom of Information Unit.
Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.
Goodwill:
Although excess cost removes the forces obligations under the Freedom of Information Act to provide any further information, as a gesture of goodwill, I have provided information, relative to questions 1 and 2 of your request which has been easily retrievable and outlined below. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.
Question 1 and 2
|
Total number of recorded confirmed shoplifting offences |
||
|
Year |
Total number recorded |
Total number attended in person |
|
2013 |
1630 |
1242 |
|
2014 |
1332 |
997 |
|
2015 |
1490 |
1058 |
|
2016 |
1579 |
1141 |
|
2017 |
1893 |
1302 |
|
2018 |
2029 |
1197 |
|
2019 |
1837 |
903 |
|
2020 |
1270 |
567 |
|
2021 |
1295 |
479 |
|
2022 |
1819 |
490 |
|
2023 |
1669 |
382 |
Please note: In recent years we implemented a Crime and Incident Hub, to improve efficiency, so a proportion of incidents may have been dealt with via the telephone rather than in person.
It should be noted that owing to the systems adopted by Dyfed-Powys Police in relation to the recording of such matters the information provided may or may not be accurate.
Police Forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime statistics to government bodies and the recoding criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. It should be noted that for these reasons this Force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 02/04/24)