FOI 433-2025 / Apr 2025 / Offensive weapons
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 433-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 14th April 2025 as follows:
Q1. How many children (under 18) have been charged with possession of an offensive weapon in the last year?
Q2. How many children were charged with possession of an offensive weapon on school premises in the last year?
Q3. What is the age of the youngest child caught with an offensive weapon in your patch in the last year?
Q4. How many children (under 18) were charged with possession of an offensive weapon in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025?
Please provide the information in an excel spreadsheet or another machine-readable format.
Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in providing the response to your request and for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response:
When reviewing the information please note the following:
- The numerical data presented below is an unaudited snapshot of unpublished data sourced from "live" systems and is subject to the interpretation of the original request by the individual extracting the data.
- The responses have been based on crimes and crime outcomes. Crime outcomes only show the most serious outcome for any suspect attached to a crime. In the event that there are multiple suspects linked to a crime, this does not take into account ‘lesser’, or like outcomes of any other suspect(s).
- For Q1, a search of the Crime Recording System was conducted for all crimes recorded between 1st May 2024 and 30th April 2025 classified under Home Office Primary Offence Group ‘Possession of Weapons’, with at least one suspect role recorded, and where at least one of these suspects was aged 17 or under at the time the offence was recorded. The results were then filtered for all crimes with an outcome type of either Type 1 - Charged/Summonsed/Postal Requisition or Type 1A - Charged/Summons - alternate offence.
- The above search was repeated for Q4 except the recording period was extended to between 1st January 2021 and 30th April 2025.
- For Q2 - A search of the Crime Recording System was conducted for all crimes recorded between 1st May 2024 and 30th April 2025 classified under Home Office Primary Offence Group ‘Possession of Weapons’, with at least one suspect role recorded, and where at least one of these suspects was aged 17 or under at the time the offence was recorded and where the crime has a ‘Location Premises Type’ of School OR a ‘Location Premises Name’ taken from our master list of schools in Warwickshire . The results were then filtered to identify any crimes with an outcome type of either Type 1 - Charged/Summonsed/Postal Requisition or Type 1A - Charged/Summons - alternate offence.
- ‘Location Premise Type’ is not a mandatory field and is therefore not always completed. For this reason, should there be relevant offences recorded but where the Location Premise Type of ‘School’ has not been used, then these will not have been located from the search. In addition, where a ‘Location Type’ is used, this may refer to the closest point of reference for the crime. For example, where an incident occurs in the street, immediately outside a school building, then a Location Premise Type of ‘School’ may be recorded on the crime. For this reason, the results for Q2 cannot be assumed to be entirely accurate.
- For Q3 – The results from Q1 were reviewed to locate the suspect role(s) with the youngest age; however, please note that this does not necessarily mean they were charged. As above, crime outcomes only show the most serious outcome for any suspect attached to a crime. In the event that there are multiple suspects linked to a crime, this does not take into account ‘lesser’ (including NFA), or like outcomes of any other suspect(s).
- Not all investigations have been completed and therefore some crimes have yet to have an outcome type assigned.
Q1 response: 13
Q2 response: No crimes were located using the above search method.
Q3 response: 14 years old.
Q4 response:
|
Year |
Total |
|
2021 |
20 |
|
2022 |
23 |
|
2023 |
17 |
|
2024 |
20 |
|
2025 |
3 |
|
Grand Total |
83 |
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible; however, the data is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system, therefore care should be taken to ensure data collection processes, and their inevitable limitations are considered when interpreting the data.
Your attention is drawn to the below which details your right of complaint.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write or email the Freedom of Information Unit quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer
Freedom of Information Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB