Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)

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 23/01/2020 which is in accordance with the legislation.

To note - your request has been aggregated as your submissions are all on the subject of offences in Washington. This is in line with cost/time constraints .
You will be provided with one response, which will be sent to this what do they know reference number only.
Also to note, as you have not specified, that we are taking 'the last 5 years' to relate to the last 5 calendar years - 2014 - 2018

Yours sincerely

Information Management Unit

www.northumbria.police.uk | www.northumbria-pcc.gov.uk

'Northumbria Police will be outstanding in the service we provide'

'We will do this through protecting the Vulnerable, delivering quality Investigations and applying Problem solving to everything we do to protect the communities we serve.'

show quoted sections

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

Thank you for your email dated 20 December 2019 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:

1. How many young people (18-24, and u18) have been arrested for buying,
selling, or otherwise possessing weed in the last five years in
Washington? Please break down by offence, year, and the demographic group
specified.

2. How many people under the age of 18 have been arrested for buying,
selling, or otherwise possessing alcohol, tobacco products, or other
age-restricted substances in the last five years in Washington? Please
break down by offence and year.

3. How many cyber-bullying offences (malicious communications, harassment,
etc) have been reported in the last five years in Washington? Please break
down by offence and year.

4. How many armed robberies and non-armed robberies have been committed in
Washington in the last five years? Please break down by year, offence, and
result of police investigation.

5. How many car crashes have occurred in a five-mile radius of Washington
in the past five years? How many of those car crashes involved serious
injury, and how many of those car crashes had fatalities involved? Please
break down by year.

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 within
Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested
is held by Northumbria Police.

Points 1 – 4:

I am able to disclose the located information to you as attached with the
limitations of searches made being noted below.

Washington is taken as the policing sector defined as Washington.

Possession of cannabis usually results in an on-the-spot fine, therefore
arrests will not reflect the true extent of those in possession.

It should be noted in Q2 that the HO code for minors possessing, or being
provided with, tobacco relates to those of under 16 years of age, not 18.
I would also anticipate arrests (or even crimes) being more likely to be
logged against the supplier, rather than the minor.

It should be noted that in Q3 searches have been made on the crime tables
only for instances of harassment that have been specifically flagged as
cyber-related.

It should also be noted that in Q4, regarding armed robbery, we do not
have an armed robbery flag. As such, searches have been made of the
database and if a weapon has been logged as part of a crime then we have
noted it as armed. It should be noted that these fields are not always
entirely accurate.

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

With all the above noted please see the attached for those points.

5. With regard to point 5, this data includes parts of Gateshead and
Sunderland, as those areas are incorporated within a five mile radius of
Washington

Again, the caveat above should be noted at this point also – that is:

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

Collision Severity 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17 2017/18 2018/19 Grand Total
Fatal 3 4 3 6 6 22
Serious 47 81 77 72 80 357
Slight 582 574 442 376 387 2361
Grand Total 632 659 522 454 473 2740

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]

'Northumbria Police will be outstanding in the service we provide'

'We will do this through protecting the Vulnerable, delivering quality
Investigations and applying Problem solving to everything we do to protect
the communities we serve.'

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

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