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:
1. Have you introduced misogyny as a hate crime in your force? If not, are there plans to do so?
2. If Yes to question 1. For public interest, how many individuals have made reports to your force where they have specifically stated misogyny as the offence/alleged offence?
3. How many offences/alleged offences have actually been logged on your system as 'misogyny as a hate crime'?
4. How many individuals have been arrested/questioned under caution for the offence of 'misogyny as a hate crime'?
5. How many individuals have been charged by your force with the aggravating factor of 'misogyny as a hate crime'?
6. Specifically, how has training been impacted by misogyny as a hate crime?
7. Is there specific training for unconscious bias?
In Response:
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 in part by Northumbria Police.
I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.
Whilst ‘Misogyny’ is not currently specifically recorded in its own right as a crime or aggregating factor, it may be noted within other crimes. However for us to establish what may be held within relevant crimes, ie harassment, sexual and violent offences etc where the victim was female, a manual review would be required to establish if ‘Misogyny’ had been mentioned within. Unfortunately this exercise cannot be achieved within the permitted 18 hour threshold therefore Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act would apply. This section does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimated that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours, equating to £450.00
You should consider this to be a refusal notice under Section 17 of the Act for your request.
When applying Section 12 exemption our duty to assist under Section 16 of the Act would normally entail that we contact you to determine whether it is possible to refine the scope of your request to bring it within the cost limits. However, from the information we have outlined above I see no reasonable way in which we can do so at these points.
Although excess cost removes Northumbria Police's obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied information below, relative to your request, retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.
With regards to point 6, its unclear at this point what is meant. However we can find no information that identifies any ‘impact’ misogyny has had on training.
7. Yes
