Racially Aggravated Offences
Dear Freedom of Information Officer,
I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. In order to assist you with this request, I am outlining my query as specifically as possible.
1) How many arrests have been made as a result of racially aggravated offences in each of the last five years (2004 to 2009)?
2) What were the reasons for these arrests and how many arrests were made for each offence?
3) How many of these arrests resulted in convictions in court?
I would be interested in any information held by your organisation regarding my request. I understand that I do not have to specify particular files or documents and that it is the department’s responsibility to provide the information I require.
If my request is denied in whole or in part, I ask that you justify all deletions by reference to specific exemptions of the act. I will also expect you to release all non-exempt material. I reserve the right to appeal your decision to withhold any information or to charge excessive fees.
I would be grateful if you could confirm in writing/by email that you have received this request. I look forward to your response within 20 working days, as outlined by the statute.
Regards,
Dan Perry
Dear Dan
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 0605/09
We acknowledge receipt of your Freedom of Information (FOI) request which
was received by Cambridgeshire Constabulary on 24/11/09
Your request will now be considered in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. You will receive a response within the statutory
timescale of twenty working days as defined by the Act. In some
circumstances, we may be unable to achieve this deadline. If this is the
case, you will be informed and given a revised time-scale at the earliest
opportunity.
If we require any further clarification regarding this request, you will be
notified.
We would advise you that the nature of certain requests may involve payment
of a fee. If this is the case, you will be notified.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please
telephone on 0345 456 456 4 asking for the Information Access Office or
email [Cambridgeshire Constabulary request email]
Regards
Donna Anderson
Information Access Office
Cambridgeshire Constabulary
Dear Dan
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 0605/2009
In reply to your request for information under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000, dated 23rd November 2009.
In order for me to progress with this request, please could you provide
this office with further information.
Your first question asks for the number of arrests which have been made as
a result of a 'racially aggravated' activity and we are able to respond to
this and shall do so once the retrieval of the data has been completed.
However, it must be noted that an arrest record frequently contains
multiple offences which require investigation and it is this aspect that
causes a problem with regard to your next two questions.
The second question asks for a breakdown of arrests by the offence
committed. This will bear no correllation to the numbers returned by the
first question and is likely to be far higher as a consequence; please
confirm that this higher number is required. It must be noted that there
are 4 categories of 'racial or religious' offence recorded on arrest
records and that these do not necessarilly correspond with the offence(s)
for which an offender is subsequently charged.
Your final question asks for the number of these arrests which resulted in
convictions in court. Again, it is possible to retrieve this data from our
systems; however since a person may be arrested for one offence (say
''racially aggravated assault') and charged and convicted with another
(perhaps "common assault") with no racial motivation. Please confirm that
this is the information requried.
After receiving your reply, your request will then be considered and you
will receive the information requested within the statutory timescale of 20
working days as defined by the Freedom of Information Act 2000, subject to
the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third
party.
However, if the requested additional information has not been received by
14 days from the date on this email, I will assume you no longer wish to
proceed with this request and will treat it as withdrawn.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please
contact the Information Access Office on telephone number 0345 456 456 4
extension 8164.
Yours sincerely
David Price
Information Access Office
Cambridgeshire Constabulary
Dear Cambridgeshire Constabulary,
Thankyou for getting back to me. With regards to the second question, the higher number is required. For the final question, however, I would prefer the data for convictions due to racially motivated offences only, if possible.
Yours faithfully,
Dan Perry
Dear Dan
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 0605/2009
In reply to your request for information under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000, dated 23rd November 2009 and which was received in Cambridgeshire
as follows:
1) How many arrests have been made as a result of racially aggravated
offences in each of the last five years (2004 to 2009)?
2) What were the reasons for these arrests and how many arrests were made
for each offence?
3) How many of these arrests resulted in convictions in court?
Following clarification requested by us, you stated you appreciated that
there will be no correllation between these figures. This is because a
person may be arrested for multiple offences which may include one or more
'racially aggravated' offences which subsequently do not lead to being
charged for such an offence. Similarly a person may be arrested for a
non-racially aggravated offence and subsequently be charged with a
racially-aggravated offence.
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (The Act) requires us to handle all
requests in a manner that is blind to the identity of the requestor. Any
information released in response to a request is regarded as being
published, and therefore in the public domain without caveat.
We have completed all searches within Cambridgeshire Constabulary and
hereby enclose your response.
1. Records are only available for this information from 5 December 2006
when the recorded method was changed to include an appropriate 'marker' and
our searches revealed the following numbers of persons arrested where the
reason for arrest includes an offence with a racially aggravated motive:
a. 2006 2
b. 2007 149
c. 2008 192
d. 2009 154 (as at 30th November 2009.
2. The offences and years are as follows:
|--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
| Year/Offence | Criminal | POA Sec 4a - | POA Sec 4 - | POA Sec 5 - |
| |Damage - |Religious/Raci|Religious/Raci|Religious/Raci|
| |Racial or |al |al |al |
| |Religious | | | |
|--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
| 2006 | | | | 2 |
|--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
| 2007 | 8 | 43 | 35 | 67 |
|--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
| 2008 | 13 | 75 | 50 | 56 |
|--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
| 2009 to 30 | 7 | 61 | 39 | 47 |
| November | | | | |
|--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
3. The numbers of convictions for racially aggravated offences, using
'offence' date rather than conviction date are as follows:
a. 2006: 4
b. 2007: 48
c. 2008: 50
d. 2009: 42
In respect of figures recorded before 5 December 2006, Section 12(1) of the
Freedom of Information Act states that a public authority is not obliged to
comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the
cost of complying with the request would exceed the “appropriate limit”.
For Police forces in the UK, the "appropriate limit" is considered to be up
to 18 hours of work on one request. This information is given in the
Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
It is estimated that it will take more than 50 hours to provide an answer
to this request for each full year of data requested. This is because
records did not carry an identifiable flag to segregate them on an
automatic search progam as being racially aggravated, therefore a time
consuming manual trawl of all arrest records would need to be conducted.
Our estimate is that there would be in the region of 10,000 records for
each year and that to retrieve information from each record would take
30seconds on average, thus resulting in more than 50 hours per year
required. I am unable to suggest a method of reducing your request down
into a more manageable form than already done.
Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime
statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set
nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not
generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the crime data.
It should be noted that for these reasons this forces response to your
questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other
response you may receive.
If you are unhappy with this response, please see the attachment below,
which sets out your rights to appeal.
(See attached file: Complaint Rights new.nov - 09.pdf)
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please
contact the Information Access Office via email, or on telephone number
0345 456 456 4 extension 8164.
Regards
David Price
Information Access Office
Cambridgeshire Constabulary
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