Knife Crime 8/2024

FOI Reference: 08/2024

Request:

1. For the years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 how many crimes were logged by your force where a machete was recorded as being an element in the offence? (Note: I would hope that this could be achieved by a computer search on the MO of crimes for the words "machete" or variants of the spelling to include "machete" and "machetes").
2. For the years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 how many crimes were logged by your force where a sword was recorded as being an element in the offence?
3. For the years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 how many crimes were logged by your force where a zombie knife or zombie sword was recorded as being an element in the offence?
4. Please provide me with a table showing a breakdown of the crimes from Question 1 that are ‘linked’ to machete/s by its mention in the MO for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 by offence subgroup as per the Home Office counting rules.
5. Please provide me with a table showing a breakdown of the crimes from Question 2 that are ‘linked’ to sword/s by its mention in the MO for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 by offence subgroup as per the Home Office counting rules.
6. Please provide me with a table showing a breakdown of the crimes from Question 3 that are ‘linked’ to zombie knife/knives by its mention in the MO for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 by offence subgroup as per the Home Office counting rules.

 

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.

Dyfed-Powys Police are unable to confirm or not whether we hold information relevant to your request, 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.

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 providing you with the information requested in respect 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 1,945.58 hours) to comply with this part of your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244

The Freedom of Information Unit has been advised by the relevant department that in order to establish what information is relevant to the whole request for figures between 13/05/2023 and 31/12/2023 would exceed the appropriate time limit i.e. 18 hours. This is due to the fact that the recording system has recently changed, the relevant search filters are not available. Therefore, in order to establish a response would require an individual interrogation of each relevant report recorded during that time.

It has been established that there is a total of 23,347 offences that would require individual interrogation and it has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 5 minutes to research each individual record the relevant time estimate is detailed below:

• 13/05/2023 and 31/12/2023 – 23,347 offences x 5 minutes per record = 1,945.58 hours.

Therefore total time estimate to complete the whole request for figures between 13/05/2023 – 31/12/2023 = 1,862.00 hours.

 

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. Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact me.

 

Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.

 

Although excess cost removed the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill, I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded. 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 response:

Year	Total number of crimes where the word “Machete” or variants of spelling occurs in the crime summary
2019	8
2020	8
2021	18
2022	18
2023 up to 12/05/2023	11
Total	63

 

Question 2 response:

Year	Total number of crimes where the word “Sword” occurs in the crime summary
2019	6
2020	7
2021	6
2022	19
2023 up to 12/05/2023	2
Total	40

 

Question 3 response:

Year	Total number of crimes where the word “Zombie Sword” occurs in the crime summary
2019	0
2020	1
2021	0
2022	0
2023 up to 12/05/2023	0
Total	1

 

Question 4 response:

Offence	Volume
Threats to kill	12
Possession of an article with a blade or point	10
Other Offences (Against the State and Public Order)	8
Harassment	7
Malicious Communications	6
Assault without injury	5
Public Fear, Alarm or Distress - Public Order Act Sec 4	3
Robbery of Personal Property	3
Assault with Injury	2
Possession of Other Weapons	2
Aggravated Burglary - Residential	1
Assault with Intent to Cause Serious Harm	1
Burglary – Residential	1
Kidnap & False Imprisonment	1
Violent Disorder	1
Grand Total	63

 

Question 5 response:

Offence	Volume
Possession of an article with a blade or point	8
Firearms Act 1968 and other Firearms Acts	7
Possession of Other Weapons	5
Other Offences (Against the State and Public Order)	4
Malicious Communications	2
Possession of a an article with a blade or point	2
Threats to kill	2
Assault with Injury	1
Assault with Intent to Cause Serious Harm	1
Assault without injury	1
Burglary - Business and Community	1
Burglary - Residential	1
Non-fatal Strangulation and Suffocation	1
Possession of Controlled Drugs (excluding Cannabis)	1
Rape of a Male aged 16 or over	1
Theft in a dwelling other than from an Automatic Machine or Meter	1
to Children/Young Persons	1
Grand Total	40

 

 

Question 6 response:

 

Offence	Volume
Possession of Other Weapons	1

 

 

It should be noted that as a result of the systems adopted by Dyfed-Powys Police in relation to the recording of such information that the information released may or may not be accurate.

 

Furthermore, it should also be noted that Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the crime 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

Disclosed on the 30^th January 2024.