Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)

Thank you for your email dated 19 February in which you make a request for
information that Northumbria Police may hold in accordance with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Please note that under the act you are unable to request information to a
future date ie to the end of February.  We can process to the date that
your request was received.  Therefore, for the avoidance of
doubt/confusion we can confirm that we will process your request as for
the following search period:

“Please provide the information for each calendar year from January 1st
2016 to the end of February 2021 (or whichever date this request is
processed). to 19 February 2020”

We are in the process of dealing with your request and a response should
be provided to you by 19 March 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.'

show quoted sections

Laura

In order that we may provide only relevant information, and attempt to
keep this submission within the permitted time, please clarify what is
meant by ‘managing, or helping to manage..’ as this is too vague as it
stands.

If you provide the Home Office code/s that your interested in we can
progress accordingly.

Your request will remain on hold until we hear from you further.

Regards

FOI team
[1]www.northumbria.police.uk

We are a flexible working organisation. Please only respond to this email
in your own working hours.

'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.'

show quoted sections

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

Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) Request 256/21 - Prostitution
Arrests 2016-2021

Thank you for your email dated 19 February 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:

The number of arrests in for each of the following:

1.     managing or assisting in the management of a brothel,

2.     loitering for the purposes of prostitution, and

3.     soliciting for the purposes of prostitution.

In each case, please indicate whether the arrested person is male or
female. Please provide the information for each calendar year from January
1st 2016 to the end of February 2021 (or whichever date this request is
processed). 19 February 2020.

On 25/02/21 we sought clarity on your definition of point 1, to which you
responded:

'Managing or helping to manage' here refers to the following sections of
the 2003 Sexual Offences Act:

33A Keeping a brothel used for prostitution

(1)It is an offence for a person to keep, or to manage, or act or assist
in the management of, a brothel to which people resort for practices
involving prostitution (whether or not also for other practices).

(2)In this section “prostitution” has the meaning given by section 51(2)
of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

I believe these may be the codes you're referring to:

024/19 keeping a brothel used for prostitution

107/01 keeping a brothel

107/02 letting premises for use as a brothel

107/03 tenant permitting premises to be used as a brothel

107/04 tenant permitting premises to be used for prostitution

107/05 keeping a brothel for homosexual practices

107/06 letting premises for use as a brothel for homosexual purposes

107/07 tenant permitting premises to be used as a brothel for homosexual
purposes

107/10 other brothel keeping offences

142/14 permitting licensed premises to be used as a brothel

If these are the relevant codes, I am happy for any corresponding data you
might have on this subject to be grouped under the umbrella term of 
'managing a brothel' or similar, if that speeds up the process for you.

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.

I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

As advised, we are unable to provided data for a date that is in the
future, therefore the data is as of the date of your submission and
therefore runs up to and including 19/02/2021.

1.

+---------------------------------+
| Year | M | F |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2016 | 1 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2017 | 0 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2018 | 0 | 1 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2019 | 0 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2020 | 0 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2021 | 0 | 0 |
+---------------------------------+

2.

+---------------------------------+
| Year | M | F |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2016 | 0 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2017 | 0 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2018 | 0 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2019 | 0 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2020 | 0 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2021 | 0 | 0 |
+---------------------------------+

3.

+---------------------------------+
| Year | M | F |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2016 | 0 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2017 | 1 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2018 | 0 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2019 | 0 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2020 | 0 | 0 |
|-------------+--------+----------|
| 2021 | 0 | 0 |
+---------------------------------+

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...

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]

'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.'

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