Cat Thefts 2016-2020
KEYWORDS
Cats, Cat Theft, Stolen, Pet Theft, Resolved, Closed, Breed
PUBLICATION NUMBER
PUB 1057
FOI REFERENCE NUMBER
FOI 14701
REQUEST TITLE
Cat Thefts 2016-2020
DATE RANGE
Yearly, 2016-2020
INFORMATION REQUESTED
1. Can you tell me the number of cats reported stolen by theft location and breed in your police force area in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and between January 2020 and June 2020.
2. For the same time periods, can you also please confirm how many reports of cat theft have been resolved and closed?
3. Of such reports, how many resulted in action being taken against the alleged perpetrators reported?
4. Of such reports, how many resulted in successful prosecution?
DISCLOSURE WITH EXEMPTIONS
S12 Plus Information
INFORMATION CORRECT AS AT
19/08/2020
DATE OF DISCLOSURE
07/09/2020
RELATED DOCUMENTS
N/A
FOI 14701 RESPONSE
Having completed enquiries within Essex Police in respect of Section 1(1)(a), Essex Police does hold information relating to your request, however, the obligation of Section 1(1)(b) cannot be met as Essex Police does not hold all the information requested in a format that allows it to be retrieved within the time and cost limits of FOI.
When responding to a request for information under the terms of the FOIA, a public authority is not obliged to provide information if the authority estimates that the cost of the retrieval of the information requested would be in excess of £450 (equivalent to 18 hours work). The costs criteria relates to a request in its entirety, which means that if we cannot retrieve all of the information requested within the costs limit, we are not obliged to retrieve any of the information requested.
Section 12(1) of the FOIA states that a public authority is not obliged to:
“…comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.”
The following explanation outlines the difficulty Essex Police has in answering your request:
Essex Police have estimated that we would not be able to provide all the information requested in your submission in terms of Freedom of Information. I am afraid that the specific information you are seeking access is not held by Essex Police in what is referred to as in a readily accessible format, that is to say, this data is not extractable from central databases or held in spreadsheets. Breed of cat cannot be provided as this is not recorded in an extractable format, to retrieve cat breed will require Essex Police to manually review each investigation. To establish if information is held would, therefore, exceed the time and cost limits under the FOIA and would qualify as the creation of data as the results cannot be processed by means of purely sorting or filtering data sources or running a database query tool. There is no requirement under the act to create data purely to answer FOI requests.
Consequently, and to this extent, Essex Police are exempt from the duty to provide information you have requested under the provisions of Section 12(1) of the FOIA. Therefore, and in accordance with Section 17(1) of the FOIA, this communication must act as a refusal notice to provide all of the information that could be interpreted as being captured by this part of your request.
Having said that, in an effort to assist, although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the FOIA, Essex Police are able to provide the below.
Number of offences per location
| Location of Offences | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Basildon |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
1 |
|
Braintree |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
|
Brentwood |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
|
Castle Point |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
|
Chelmsford |
3 |
0 |
3 |
3 |
0 |
|
Colchester |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
|
Epping Forest |
1 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
|
Harlow |
2 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
|
Maldon |
1 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
|
Rochford |
0 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
|
Southend-on-Sea |
5 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
|
Tendring |
0 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
|
Thurrock |
4 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
|
Uttlesford |
2 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
0 |
|
Total |
20 |
14 |
19 |
18 |
8 |
Outcomes that include resolved and action taken
|
Outcome Type |
2016 |
2017 |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Type 14 - Evidential Difficulties Victim Based- Suspect Not Identified: Crime Confirmed But The Victim Either Declines Or Unable To Support Further Police Investigation To Identify The Offender |
2 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
|
Type 15 - Named Suspect Identified: Victim Supports Police Action But Evidential Difficulties Prevent Further Action |
4 |
3 |
5 |
2 |
2 |
|
Type 16 - Named Suspect Identified: Evidential Difficulties Prevent Further Action: Victim Does Not Support (Or Has Withdrawn Support From) Police Action |
2 |
2 |
0 |
4 |
3 |
|
Type 18 - Investigation Complete; No Suspect Identified. Crime Investigated As Far As Reasonably Possible-Case Closed Pending Further Investigative Opportunities Becoming Available |
11 |
8 |
12 |
11 |
3 |
|
Type 20 - Further action resulting from the crime report will be undertaken by another body or agency subject to the victim (or person acting on their behalf) being made aware of the act to be taken |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Type 8 - Community resolution (Crime) |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Total |
20 |
14 |
19 |
18 |
8 |
Caveat: The data that has been provided includes the outcomes for offences which have been resolved and closed and if any action has been taken against the suspect. There are also no investigations which resulted in prosecution.
Every effort is made to ensure that the data provided by Essex Police is accurate and complete. However, Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not for the purposes of providing data to answer specific FOI enquiries. Please note although data can be extracted from a number of sources via database queries the results may be subject to inaccuracies. Care should be taken to understand our return when considering the interpretation or further use of the data.