Knife Crime - 100/20

Date Responded 03 February 2020

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:

Further to your response to FOI 1582/19 - Please could you provide data for all incidents of knife crime that occurred in Northumbria over a 10-year period. Specifically Questions 2 - Please could you ensure this data is also broken down by age, and Question 3 - Please can you also confirm whether motive is listed for these knife-related incidents. If the cost allowance allows, please also provide the motives with each incident. If this is too expensive, please could you only detail which incidents were between family members and/or partners and so domestic abuse. You responded that:

2 The following data has been included where available. Not all crimes will have a definitive victim, whilst others may have multiple victims. In the event that a crime does have a victim, their DoB may not be registered (eg, armed robbery or intimidation versus an assault.)

Victim Age	Count
0 to 18	870
19 to 24	1,334
25 to 30	1,456
31 to 35	951
36 to 40	835
41 to 45	644
46 to 50	523
51+	851
Total	7,464

3 Domestic violence is actively flagged on the force system and therefore can be checked. Figures are as follows:

Type	Count
DV	2,841
Non-DV	9,703
Total	12,544

Would it be possible, please, to get the age and DV/non-DV figures broken down by each year please?

In Response:

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.

As advised earlier this request has been aggregated with your previous request FOI 1582/19 with regards to time constraints under the Act, as they refer to the same subject area – Knife Crime.

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held in part by Northumbria Police.

I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

Year	Count
2010	1129
2011	1100
2012	872
2013	910
2014	935
2015	1224
2016	1374
2017	1337
2018	1336
2019	2327
Total	12544

This data has been provided via any crimes meeting the ADR160 requirements.

ADR160 is the Home Office return based around knife crime, which helps define which weapons count toward knife crime.

Please note that this is dependent on specific fields on the Crime MO being completed. This dependency would be present irregardless of how the data was queried.

Please note that this will include any and all crimes wherein a knife or similar object (eg scissors, screwdriver) was used in any way, shape or form; this will as such include armed robbery or threats.

Age Group	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	Total
0-18	69	74	35	58	53	67	81	92	124	204	857
19-24	108	114	83	104	95	132	123	154	175	224	1312
25-30	91	83	55	85	117	129	141	230	231	278	1440
31-35	44	49	46	48	66	85	107	135	166	194	940
36-40	42	42	34	45	43	67	90	139	136	186	824
41-45	39	45	35	40	54	61	62	85	81	132	634
46-50	43	33	29	23	41	45	48	80	72	103	517
51-100	53	46	42	42	71	85	80	107	114	207	847
Not Stated	640	614	513	465	395	553	642	315	237	799	5173

This data has been included where available.

Not all crimes will have a definitive victim, whilst others may have multiple victims.

In the event that a crime does have a victim, their DoB may not be registered (eg, armed robbery or intimidation versus an assault.)

Type	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	Total
Non-DV	881	915	724	708	715	927	1093	1010	960	1770	9703
DV	248	185	148	202	220	297	281	327	376	557	2841

Motive is not held in such a way that we would be able to query it within the time or cost constraints. It would require a record by record check, which would exceed 627 of work. This part has therefore been discounted

Domestic violence is actively flagged on the force system and therefore can be checked.

Disclaimer

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.