FOI 334989

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 334989

I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 16^th May 2024. Please find below the response to your request:

For each of the following financial years: 2021/22; 2022/23; 2023/24; please provide the following information:

- How many reported crimes involved the use, threat, or presence of a knife or other bladed weapon/article. (Please provide separate figures for each year).

- How many arrests were made for the possession of a knife or other bladed weapon/article. (Please provide separate figures for each year).

- Of those arrested, how many were aged in the following age brackets: 0-5 years; 6-10 years; 11-15 years; 15-20 years. (Please provide separate figures for each age bracket in each year).

Reply

Your request for information has been considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”), and I am not obliged to provide the information requested.

S.12(1) of the Act states that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the “appropriate limit”. For police forces in England and Wales, the "appropriate limit" is £450 or 18 hours of work as set by the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.

A knife can be used in a number of offences in a number of ways. We do not have a reliable and consistent way to identify which crimes recorded on our systems involved a knife. As keywords are used in searches there may be false positives for example incidents where a victim was buttering some toast holding a knife at the time that they were assaulted, or the suspect was in possession of a concealed knife during the commission of a theft where the knifes presence was unknown until a search was completed in custody, or some offences which have not been included because the knife was not described using one of the identified terms.

The information you have requested is not available in a readily retrievable format. There are over 9950 records. In order to ascertain whether the information you have requested is held would take in excess of 497 hours as each record would have to be checked individually.

In accordance with s.17(5) of the Act, this acts as a Refusal Notice.

Under s.16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request.

However, In accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request and can provide the information of data which relates to the possession of a bladed article as this was retrieved during our initial research. This should not be taken as a precedent that additional information would be supplied outside of the time/fees legislation for any subsequent requests.

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