Detentions under mental health act by ethnicity

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, North Yorkshire Police should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear North Yorkshire Police,

I am writing to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act for data on people detained by the force under the Mental Health Act.

For the 2019-20 and the 2020-21 financial years, please tell me:

1) The number of people detained under the Mental Health Act, broken down by officer-perceived ethnicity

2) The type of vehicle officers used to transport those detained to a place of safety, broken down by officer-perceived ethnicity. Please split these by ambulance, police vehicle, other health vehicle, other, not known, or none (already at a place of safety).

3) The place of safety used for those detained, broken down by officer-perceived ethnicity. Please split these by police station, A&E, private home, health based place of safety, other, and not known.

4) For those people transported using a police vehicle, please specify whether an ambulance was requested, broken down by officer perceived ethnicity.

5) For those people detained and taken to a police station, please specify the reason for the police station being used, broken down by officer perceived ethnicity. For instance in England, officers may take a person to a police station as a place of safety if they are over 18 and their behaviour poses an imminent risk of serious injury or death to that person or others (abbreviated in Home Office data as 'conditions in Regulations were met').

6) For those people detained and taken to a police station, please provide a breakdown of their officer perceived ethnicity and the duration in hours of their stay in the police station.

7) For those people detained and taken to a police station, please provide a count of those who were arrested for committing an offence, broken down by officer perceived ethnicity.

For all ethnicity breakdowns, please use Home Office/ONS categorisations. These consist of 'White', 'Black', 'Asian', 'Mixed', and 'Other'. Please include Chinese persons in the category of Other.

Yours faithfully,

Harriet Clugston

(Please note I am using a WhatDoTheyKnowAccount set up by my colleague Claire Wilde but my name is Harriet Clugston)

Civil Disclosure,

Thank you for your email, please treat this as an acknowledgement of receipt.

We are currently experiencing a very high volume of requests for information. This is causing a significant delay in response times for the below requests:

Court Orders

CAFCASS

Section 7

Section 37

Subject Access Requests

Freedom of Information Requests

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.

Your email will be dealt with accordingly.

PLEASE NOTE: If your query is to address an urgent safeguarding concern then please redirect your enquiry to the Vulnerability Assessment Team email: [email address]

The Vulnerability Assessment Team is available during office hours Monday to Friday.

Civil Disclosure Unit

Web: www.northyorkshire.police.uk

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