Hate crimes 232/2022
FOI Reference: 232/2022
Request:
The number of incidents recorded at hate crimes or incidents involving
1) hate against a trans person or group and
2) hate against a woman or women's group based on perceived or suspected hatred against those persons or groups. I would like to see the data for the last five years, up until the last reporting period, broken down by year. Please also break down the data into crimes and incidents, and provide your definition of each.
If data for either category data is not held I would like to see information relating to why it was decided to not record that data. If data was not recorded, I would like to know how many victims asked for the incident to be recorded as a hate crime or incident.
3) Please also provide information on the policy changes implemented following the Miller vs Humberside and The College of Policing ruling by Justice Knowles on 14/2/20 as upheld by the Court of Appeal 20/12/21. If no changes were made please let me see information on the discussion within the forcer, and with external bodies, not to make changes.
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 question 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 question 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 15,661.67 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @
www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043244.htm
The Freedom of Information Unit has been advised that the information in respect of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format and have been informed that there is no specific recording strand for hate against a women or women’s group. Therefore, in order to establish what information, if any, is held in relation to question 2 of the request would require the reviewing of each individual crime and its crime record over the time frame specified to identify if it relates to hate against a woman or women's group based on perceived or suspected hatred against those persons or groups. It has been established that for the period as specified within the request there are a total 93,970 crime records that would require researching/reviewing. It has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to research/review a single crime record for relevance to question 2 of your request as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.
|
2016/17 |
= |
11,470.00 |
Crimes @ 10 mins per record = |
1,911.67 |
hours |
|
2017/18 |
= |
13,386.00 |
Crimes @ 10 mins per record = |
2,231.00 |
hours |
|
2018/19 |
= |
15,311.00 |
Crimes @ 10 mins per record = |
2,551.83 |
hours |
|
2019/20 |
= |
16,717.00 |
Crimes @ 10 mins per record = |
2,786.17 |
hours |
|
2020/21 |
= |
16,744.00 |
Crimes @ 10 mins per record = |
2,790.67 |
hours |
|
2021/22* |
= |
20,342.00 |
Crimes @ 10 mins per record = |
3,390.33 |
hours |
* up to 10/03/22
Total of hours 15,661.67 hours to complete task
Please note: Responses to questions 1 and 3 can be provided within the 18 hour time limit. Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.
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 the Freedom of Information Unit.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 04/04/22)