Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) Request 1660/21 - Arrests of
Children

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 31 December 2021 which is in accordance with the
legislation.

Although every effort will be made to ensure a response is provided within
statutory deadlines, due to current circumstances delays may be
unavoidable.  We apologise for any inconvenience and will endeavour to
process your request as quickly as is practicable.

Yours sincerely

Information Management Unit

[1]www.northumbria.police.uk | [2]www.northumbria-pcc.gov.uk

'Our vision is to deliver an outstanding police service; working with
communities to prevent crime and disorder and protect the most vulnerable
people from harm.'

NORTHUMBRIA POLICE PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE The information
contained in this message and any attachment(s) is confidential and
intended only for the attention of the named organisation or individual to
whom it is addressed. The message may contain information that is covered
by legal, professional or other privilege. No mistake in transmission is
intended to waive or compromise any such privilege. This message has been
sent over public networks and the sender cannot be held responsible for
its integrity. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any
disclosure, copying, distribution or action taken in reliance of the
information contained herein is strictly prohibited, and is contrary to
the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1988 and of the
Data Protection Act, 2018. Any views expressed are those of the sender
and, unless specifically stated, do not necessarily represent the view of
Northumbria Police. We cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage
sustained as a result of software viruses. It is your responsibility to
carry out such virus checking as is necessary. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender by e-mail at once and delete
the message immediately. For more information about Northumbria Police
please visit our website - http://www.northumbria.police.uk

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Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) Request 1660/21 - Arrests of
Children

Thank you for your email received 1 December 2021 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:

How many children have been arrested in the past five years? (From 1st
December 2016-30th November 2021)

For each incident please include the:

- Child’s age

- Child's sex

- The crime recorded

- Outcome (e.  g.  whether they were charged or released under
investigation)

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 both the
Corporate Development and Criminal Justice Departments of Northumbria
Police.  I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by
Northumbria Police. 

I am able to disclose the located information to you with the following
noted. 

•       For the <10 record, the age of criminal responsible is 10 but the
offence committed is under old Common Law and so is not a criminal
offence.  Legal text states the police can arrest ‘anyone’ who is
committing this offence.  For children, it is fair to say we can arrest
anyone for anything but it’s the means to deal that brings the criminal
age into play, Mens Rea is the criminal intent and knowledge of wrong
doing.  This is where the mental age of 10 is considered to be the minimum
age to form that ‘knowledge’. 

•       The <10 record has been included in the arrest, age breakdown and
gender as unknown data above only and has not been included in the offence
and outcome counts as such counts will not match the total arrests. 

Year 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Arrests 2836 2441 2135 2091 1831 1485

Age 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
<10 0 0 1 0 0 0
10 8 7 2 2 2 5
11 12 10 18 14 9 5
12 46 66 70 61 42 51
13 209 201 167 166 147 82
14 373 355 245 289 232 200
15 601 439 379 382 360 319
16 695 631 541 518 463 393
17 892 732 712 659 576 430

Gender 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
F 531 552 431 521 415 309
M 2305 1889 1702 1570 1415 1174
U 0 0 2 0 1 2

Offence 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Assault without injury 180 180 193 190 206 170
Harassment 20 22 25 44 32 22
Modern Slavery 0 1 0 0 0 0
Non Crime 789 736 576 515 430 310
Shoplifting 184 122 75 65 16 15
Theft from the person 7 4 6 4 3 0
Other violence 77 63 71 91 71 87
Less serious violence against the person 181 113 121 143 134 139
Public disorder 234 299 254 228 171 185
Rape 53 41 36 24 36 32
Criminal damage - Residential 314 249 231 221 223 136
Other serious sexual offences 32 21 20 20 21 15
TWOC 108 67 87 89 85 39
Burglary - Residential 137 99 74 92 52 51
Other theft and handling 98 64 37 41 26 16
Drug - Possession 16 23 19 18 8 9
Burglary - Business and Community 99 84 70 59 47 40
Drug - Supply 13 19 22 29 39 19
Robbery - Business 38 34 44 43 49 34
Miscellaneous crime 43 34 39 33 37 30
Most serious violence against the person 56 49 31 37 45 60
Criminal damage - Other 52 46 50 40 28 42
Theft of a pedal cycle 23 13 10 11 20 5
Other sexual offences 8 5 9 13 4 4
TFMV 61 31 20 18 33 15
Drug - Production 3 5 2 3 3 2
Criminal damage – Vehicle / Vehicle 10 15 10 19 12 6
Interference
Fraud and forgery 0 2 2 1 0 0
Criminal damage - Business and Community 0 0 0 0 0 2

Outcome 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
1st youth caution 130 125 79 88 4 5
2nd youth caution 84 66 53 53 7 5
Await youth surgery 5 4 4 2 6 67
Bail to court - No recog / Warrant - court 21 15 10 10 1 0
CPS no prosecution / Penalty notice /
Reprimand / Warning - first instance / 2 4 4 4 2 0
Cannabis warning
Charged 608 449 362 267 200 73
Common law released 258 282 208 205 191 122
Detention refused 4 11 11 5 6 16
Escort to court / Other force / Other 167 144 128 71 45 19
Station / Prison
Fail to respond 2 0 0 1 0 1
NFA / NFA - Advice letter 1170 993 937 1057 1049 770
No details / Not known 10 22 10 16 36 35
Outside agency 14 22 14 15 17 13
Police bail 0 0 0 0 0 4
Police bail - CPS 0 0 0 0 0 20
Police bail - enquiries 0 0 0 0 0 2
Postal requisition 167 177 200 179 154 45
Simple caution 6 2 5 3 4 0
Summons 57 29 22 11 12 18
Taken into consideration 4 0 0 0 0 0
Under investigation 0 2 11 10 59 215
Youth - conditional caution / Conditional 127 94 76 94 38 55
caution

In regards to the one arrest of an under 10 year old, (which has been
included in the total number of arrests, age breakdown and gender as
unknown data above only), no further information will be provided and by
withholding this information we will rely on the following exemption:

Section 40 (2) - Personal Information

Section 40(2) is a class based absolute exemption and there is no
requirement to consider the public interest in disclosure.  That being
said where Section 40(2) is engaged in order to make the exemption
absolute there needs to be evidence that the disclosure of the information
requested would lead to identifying individuals and place information
pertaining to them into the public domain.  This constitutes personal data
which would, if released, be in breach of the rights provided by the Data
Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulations; namely the
first data protection principle, which states that personal data will be
processed lawfully, fairly and transparently. 

It is our view that the request runs counter to the three requirements
prescribed by law and that there is no lawful basis to provide this
information to you.  Furthermore, the question of fairness and
transparency is not met either as the data subject(s) in question would
have no expectation that their personal data would be provided to an FOIA
applicant and processed in this way. 

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, you should
consider this as a refusal for these parts of your request under section
17 of the Act. 

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and
complete.  However, it is important to note that these data have been
extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police
purposes.  The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is
subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. 
As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes
and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting
those data. 

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of
data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of
figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken
into account when those data are used. 

If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you
to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as
to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent
the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material. 

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-us/publications-and-documents/accessing-information/disclosure-log/

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

Tim Pasola

Data Protection and Disclosure Advisor

[NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED]

'Our vision is to deliver an outstanding police service; working with
communities to prevent crime and disorder and protect the most vulnerable
people from harm.  '

NORTHUMBRIA POLICE PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE The information
contained in this message and any attachment(s) is confidential and
intended only for the attention of the named organisation or individual to
whom it is addressed. The message may contain information that is covered
by legal, professional or other privilege. No mistake in transmission is
intended to waive or compromise any such privilege. This message has been
sent over public networks and the sender cannot be held responsible for
its integrity. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any
disclosure, copying, distribution or action taken in reliance of the
information contained herein is strictly prohibited, and is contrary to
the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1988 and of the
Data Protection Act, 2018. Any views expressed are those of the sender
and, unless specifically stated, do not necessarily represent the view of
Northumbria Police. We cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage
sustained as a result of software viruses. It is your responsibility to
carry out such virus checking as is necessary. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender by e-mail at once and delete
the message immediately. For more information about Northumbria Police
please visit our website - http://www.northumbria.police.uk

References

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1. https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/about...