Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
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:
Please could you provide me with the following:
- The statistics on domestic abuse incidents reported to Northumbria police. Please could you provide these statistics from the newest to 5 years prior.
- The statistics of domestic abuse incidents which involved a knife reported to Northumbria police. Please could you provide these statistics form the newest to 5 years prior.
- Any initiatives Northumbria police has to combat violent crime and knife crime domestically
- What support groups and after-care there is for victims of domestic abuse in Northumbria
In Response:
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development and Crime Departments 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.
With regards to points 1&2:
This data has been taken from the Central Database using the incident, crime and weapons tables. The number of incidents has then been taken, with the duplicates removed for a response to question 1.
The same data has been used for question 2 but this is refined by ADR 160 knife crime, this is a specific list of weapons that are classified as a knife or bladed article by the home office . ADR 160 is based on a number of offence types as detailed in the following list:
Attempted murder
Threats to kill
ABH & GBH
Robbery
Rape
Sexual assaults
Again, duplicates have been removed. Duplicates are generated where more than one crime is created from a single incident.
1. Figures as of 1st June – 31 May each year
Year Count
2015/16 32056
2016/17 32877
2017/18 33993
2018/19 36639
2019/20 37622
Total 173187
2.
Year Count
2015/16 325
2016/17 268
2017/18 302
2018/19 478
2019/20 529
Total 1902
3. The Northumbria Violence Reduction Unit was formed as part of the Governments Serious Violence Strategy – their role is to led the multi-agency approach to tackling serious violence in Northumbria, and ultimately improving lives through intervention work to prevent crime. Part of this work is delivered through a communications strategy that focuses on delivering insightful and engaging content to a diverse audience across Northumbria, educating them on the work being delivered and the support available to them locally.
We have delivered a series of campaigns to date, focusing on; domestic abuse, knife crime, adolescent to parent violence and other victims of crime. Our aim behind these is to; inform communities of how we are addressing their concerns, educating victims of crime of the support available and engaging audiences around the risks & harm of negative behaviour.
Campaigns have been delivered from a victim of crime perspective and where they can seek support, but also from an organisational viewpoint when we have launched funding pots to support this work. We are committed to supporting victims of crime and within the last two months have made funding available to support work around domestic abuse and specifically children and young people who have been victims of domestic abuse.
Between April 2019 and March 2020, as a result of our serious violence strategy alongside Northumbria Police, there has been a reported:
• 18% reduction in knife-enabled serious violence across the Northumbria force area
• 23% reduction in the number of young victims of knife-enabled serious violence, under the age of 25
• 6,498 knives removed from Northumbria streets by police
In addition we have a team of School Liaison Officers (SLOs) who are able to deliver education packages to young people around Domestic Abuse, Relationships and Knife Crime. Although this focused primarily on delivery in schools previously, we now have the ability to consider virtual, online delivery to education providers and community assets, as well as direct delivery when allowed and online content which is being produced to support other providers. Our SLOs are also working closely with partners to promote the parental conflict programs where appropriate and support early intervention into difficult situations. When we are able to attend physically, we will also be hosting drop-in sessions to allow parents, children and teachers to seek support around these key issues from our workers.
Over the last 12 months, we were able to offer funding to Northumberland County Council who were working on rehabilitation options for perpetrators of DA, particularly looking at those living in rural areas who find it more difficult to attend the traditional courses. This work is ongoing to some extent due to the current situation and the CRC will be looking at barriers to referrals for professionals and clients, so that we can learn from this and find a solution.
4. Each victim of domestic abuse will be offered a referral to support services.
High risk victims of domestic abuse are referred regardless of consent, as risk deemed so great non consent overridden. We use 6 IDVA (independent domestic violence advocate) agencies:
Wearside Women in Need Sunderland
Impact Family Options South Tyneside
Domestic Abuse Team Gateshead
NIDAS Newcastle Integrated Domestic Services Newcastle
Harbour North Tyneside
Domestic Abuse Support Service Northumberland Northumberland
Medium and standard risk victims who consent are referred to Victims First Northumbria.
