An inquiry into Cannabis related arrests from 2008 to 2018
Dear Northumbria Police,
I would like to request the disclosure of statistics for Cannabis related arrests in the Tyneside area since 2008 under the freedom of information act. Could you also break it down year by year.
Yours faithfully,
Daniel Ford
Dear Mr Ford
Please clarify what you define as the 'Tyneside area'
Once this is clear we can conduct our research accordingly.
Regards
FOI team
www.northumbria.police.uk | www.northumbria-pcc.gov.uk
'Northumbria Police will be outstanding in the service we provide'
'We will do this through protecting the Vulnerable, delivering quality Investigations and applying Problem solving to everything we do to protect the communities we serve.'
Dear Freedom of Information Mailbox,
The area that includes Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, Tynemouth, Wallsend, South Shields, and Jarrow.
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Ford
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)
Thank you for your email received today in which you make a request for
information that Northumbria Police may hold in accordance with the
Freedom Of Information Act 2000
We are in the process of dealing with your request and a response should
be provided to you by 25/02/2019 which is in accordance with the
legislation.
Yours sincerely
Information Management Unit
[1]www.northumbria.police.uk | [2]www.northumbria-pcc.gov.uk
'Northumbria Police will be outstanding in the service we provide'
'We will do this through protecting the Vulnerable, delivering quality
Investigations and applying Problem solving to everything we do to protect
the communities we serve.'
Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
Thank you for your e mail dated 27 January 2019 in which you made a
request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria
Police.
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of
access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority
(including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
I would like to request the disclosure of statistics for Cannabis related
arrests in the Tyneside area since 2008 under the freedom of information
act. Could you also break it down year by year.
Further clarity was sought and you defined Tyneside as the area that
includes Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, Tynemouth, Wallsend, South
Shields, and Jarrow.
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I
provide a response for your attention.
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the
Corporate Development Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that
the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police however
cannot be disclosed for the following reasons.
The information requested is not held in a format that allows its
extraction within the permitted time constraints. We cannot identify all
arrests where cannabis may have contributed to an arrest, or have been a
factor in a crime. Additionally it is not always known at the time of
arrest which drug is involved. Initial searched made have indicated that
in 2017 alone there were in excess of 900 arrests for drug offences. Each
of those would require a manual review to establish which related to
cannabis. Even at a conservative estimate of 3 minutes per record, which
we have considered as reasonable, we have estimated that to extract this
information for that one year period alone would take over 45 hours,
therefore Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act would apply.
This section does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request
for information if the authority estimated that the cost of complying with
the request would exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours, equating to
£450.00
You should consider this to be a refusal notice under Section 17 of the
Act for your request.
However, in order to provide you with some assistance, under Section 16 of
the Freedom of Information Act 2000, an initial assessment of the
information that may be provided within the time constraints would be the
number of arrests for offences which contain the word cannabis, as per the
list below. This can be defined by the area you defined as Tyneside,
however would be for a 5 year period only – from 2014 to 2018.
If this would be useful, you may wish to refine and resubmit your request
accordingly.
092/21 Drugs Reinstated wef 26.01.09 / Cultivation of a cannabis plant
092/22 Drugs Production or being concerned in the production of a
controlled drug class B – Synthetic cannabis
092/26 Drugs Obsolete wef 26.01.09 / Production or being concerned in
the production of Cannabis and cannabis resin
092/42 Drugs Supplying or offering to supply a controlled drug Class B
- Synthetic cannabis
092/46 Drugs Obsolete wef 26.01.09 / Supplying or offering to supply
Cannabis and cannabis resin
092/61 Drugs Reinstated wef 26.01.09 / Having possession of cannabis
092/62 Drugs Having possession of a controlled drug class B –
Synthetic Cannabis
092/66 Drugs Obsolete wef 26.01.09 / Having possession of Cannabis or
cannabis resin
092/82 Drugs Possession of a controlled drug with intent to supply
Class B - Synthetic cannabis
092/86 Drugs Obsolete wef 26.01.09 / Possession of a controlled drug
with intent to supply Cannabis or cannabis resin
093/22 Drugs Permitting premises to be used for unlawful purpose -
Synthetic cannabis
093/26 Drugs Obsolete wef 26.01.09 / Permitting premises to be used
for unlawful purposes Cannabis or cannabis resin
Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a
specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an
indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another.
Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the
procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses
between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative
purposes.
The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual
property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be
strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as
amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not
re-use this information for any commercial purpose.
You may be interested to know that Northumbria Police routinely publish
information via the Disclosure Log. The aim of the Disclosure Log is to
promote openness and transparency by voluntarily placing information into
the public arena.
The Disclosure Log contains copies of some of the information that has
been disclosed by Northumbria Police in response to requests made under
the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Whilst it is not possible to publish all responses we will endeavour to
publish those where we feel that the information disclosed is in the wider
public interest.
The Disclosure Log will be updated once responses have been sent to the
requester.
I have provided the relevant link below.
[1]https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/about...
How to complain
If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have
handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue
informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our
complaints procedure, attached.
If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and
reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information
Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain
whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.
Yours sincerely
Michael Cleugh
Data Protection and Disclosure Advisor
[NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED]
'Northumbria Police will be outstanding in the service we provide'
'We will do this through protecting the Vulnerable, delivering quality
Investigations and applying Problem solving to everything we do to protect
the communities we serve.'
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