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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NOs: West Mercia Police 11348 and Warwickshire Police 11349
I write in connection with your requests for information which were received on 4th March 2019. Please find below the responses to your requests for West Mercia Police and Warwickshire Police information:
Knife possession offences broken down by age, gender and year. My report is focusing on girls and young women involved in knife crime.
Please provide the following information:
1. The number of knife / bladed instrument possession offences for
a) 2014
b) 2015
c) 2016
d) 2017
e) 2018
f) please provide a breakdown by gender.
2. For the same time period and giving the figures for each year - how many of those offenders were under 18? Please include:
a) the exact age for each person under 18.
b) the gender of each person under 18.
c) whether the offender was caught carrying a knife or bladed object on school / educational premises? If possible, please provide the name of the school / establishment.
d) A breakdown by sentence / punishment - i.e. people cautioned, reprimanded or convicted.
REPLY:
I can now confirm that the information requested is held and details are given such that no individuals can be identified as provided in Section 40 of the Data Protection Act, 1998.
Section 40(2) is an absolute exemption which does not require me to evidence the harm that disclosure would cause and does not require consideration of a public interest test in justification of its use.
This exemption is engaged where disclosure of information could lead to the identification of an individual, either from that information alone or combined with other information from within the Police Service or public domain. In this case, releasing the names of the schools along with the age and gender of the offenders is highly likely to identity individuals; this could be a victim, a suspect, or a witness. Such a disclosure would breach an individual's rights under the Data Protection Act 2018, in particular Article 5(1) of the GDPR which states:
"1. Personal data shall be:
processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject ('lawfulness, fairness, transparency')"
The information that can be provided is detailed in the tables attached.
Please note: There is a difference between the number of crimes and suspects. This is because some crimes do not have a suspect and some crimes have more than one suspect. Separate tables have been created to show this.