Detentions under mental health act by ethnicity

The request was refused by Thames Valley Police.

Dear Thames Valley 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)

Public Access TV, Thames Valley Police

Thank you for contacting the Joint Information Management Unit. Please accept this reply as acknowledgement that we have received your email and will respond to you in due course.

If you have made an Freedom of Information request, please take this email as acknowledgement that we will respond in due course in accordance with the law. The statutory timeframe is 20 working days.

Please see below a link to the relevant area of our force website which may also assist:- https://www.hampshire.police.uk/rqo/requ... https://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/rqo/r...

Internal staff - Although we will aim to get back to you as quickly as possible, please find relevant material on the JIMU intranet/knowzone pages.

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Anderson Ruth, Thames Valley Police

1 Attachment

Good Afternoon,

 

Please find the attached response from Thames Valley Police to your
request for recorded information.

 

Kind regards

 

R Anderson |  Public Access Officer

Joint Information Management Unit | Hampshire Constabulary & Thames Valley
Police

Address Thames Valley Police Headquarters, Oxford Road, Kidlington, OX5
2NX

 

Information Management Helpdesk:

Thames Valley  [1][email address]

Hampshire    [2][email address]

 

 

 

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References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. mailto:[email address]

Public Access TV, Thames Valley Police

1 Attachment

Good afternoon,

 

Please see attached response to your recent Internal Review.

 

Kind regards,

 

Sav Mahay | Public Access Manager

Joint Information Management Unit | Hampshire Constabulary & Thames Valley
Police

Internal Telephone: 3006321

Address: Thames Valley Police Headquarters, Oxford Road, Kidlington, OX5
2NX

 

 

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Dear Thames Valley Police,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Thames Valley Police's handling of my FOI request 'Detentions under mental health act by ethnicity'.

In your response you state to obtain all the detail requested would involve manually reviewing each record.

However, this strikes me as unusual since all of the information requested is to some extent already provided to the Home Office by Thames Valley Constabulary, except for the ethnicity breakdown. Type of vehicle, place of safety, whether an ambulance was called - these are all fields in the Home Office database to which Thames Valley Police submits data. The ethnicity of those detained is also recorded and provided to the Home Office, but is not cross referenced with the other variables. But this suggests that Thames Valley Police does have a way of electronically recording specific data on such detentions without a manual review.

Please see the HO collection entitled 'Police powers and procedures England and Wales statistics', file name 'Detentions under the Mental Health Act (1983): police powers and procedures': https://www [dot] gov.uk/government/statistics/police-powers-and-procedures-england-and-wales-year-ending-31-march-2020

Could you therefore please clarify what part of the data it is that you are unable to provide?

Yours faithfully,
Harriet

Public Access TV,

 

Thank you for contacting the Joint Information Management Unit.  Please
accept this reply as acknowledgement that we have received your email and
will respond to you in due course.

 

If you have made an Freedom of Information request, please take this email
as acknowledgement that we will respond in due course in accordance with
the law.  The statutory timeframe is 20 working days.

 

Please see below a link to the relevant area of our force website which
may also assist:-
[1]https://www.hampshire.police.uk/rqo/requ...
[2]https://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/rqo/r...

 

Internal staff - Although we will aim to get back to you as quickly as
possible, please find relevant material on the JIMU intranet/knowzone
pages.  

 

 

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References

Visible links
1. https://www.hampshire.police.uk/rqo/requ...
2. https://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/rqo/r...

Public Access TV,

Good morning

Can you please provide us with the HQ reference number for your FOI request (this should be shown in your final response) and confirm what name was used to make the request.

Kind regards

Joint Information Management Unit
Thames Valley Police & Hampshire Constabulary
Address: Public Access, Thames Valley Police HQ, Oxford Road, Kidlington, Oxon OX5 2NX

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Public Access TV,

1 Attachment

Good Morning,

 

Please see attached response to your recent Internal Review.

 

Kind regards,

 

Sav Mahay | Public Access Manager

Joint Information Management Unit | Hampshire Constabulary & Thames Valley
Police

Internal Telephone: 3006321

Address: Thames Valley Police Headquarters, Oxford Road, Kidlington, OX5
2NX

 

 

 

 

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