Foreign Nationals Arrest Data and Domestic Abuse Reports Referred to the Home Office for Immigration Status
Keywords
Crime, Arrests, Data, Foreign Nationals, Nationality, Overseas, Offences, Convictions, Home Office, Immigration, Status, Domestic Abuse, Reports
Publication number
PUB 1170
FOI reference number
15490
Request title
Arrest Data - Foreign Nationals
Date range
N/A
Information requested
Could you please provide, for the latest year for which figures are available, the following information:
1. How many foreign national nationals has your force arrested, by nationality, and, where available, type of crime?
2a.* How many requests have you made for information on overseas convictions have you made for arrested foreign nationals?
2b. How many arrested foreign nationals have been found to have overseas convictions, by nationality and, where available, type of crime?
*If you do not make overseas conviction requests for some foreign nationals, background information explaining why would be appreciated.
If you hold some of the requested information but not all of it, please provide the information you do hold rather than rejecting this request.
Similarly, if you can provide some of the requested information within the cost and time limits of the FOI Act, please provide the information you can provide rather than rejecting this request.
In other words, partial answers are acceptable if this is all that you can provide.
Disclosure with exemptions
Full Refusal with S12 Exemption
Information correct as at
30 March 2021
Date of disclosure
19 April 2021
Related documents/links
N/A
FOI 15490 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 are unable to accurately extract the level of detail in relation to your request from our current systems. Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not primarily for the production of statistical information for FOI responses. This request would entail manually extracting the requested data and then reviewing each investigation report one by one to establish the nationality if held as there is no requirement to record nationality when crimes are input onto the Athena system. 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.
Section 16(1) of the FOIA provides that a public authority is required to provide advice and assistance, Essex Police can confirm that arrest data by ethnic origin can be provided if required.
You may also find the below link of interest:
The intention of Section 16 is to provide assistance in resubmitting a valid request. Please note that any advice and assistance under Section 16 regarding resubmission of a request does not indicate that resubmission will provide a full disclosure, each submission will be assessed and if a disclosure is deemed harmful, then the appropriate exemptions will apply.
FOI reference number
15516
Request title
Domestic Abuse Reports referred to Home Office for Immigration Status
Date range
2018-2020
Information requested
I write to request information and records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000 regarding the number of domestic abuse reports received by your force of which details were passed on to the Home Office. Specifically I would like the following information:
1. The number of domestic abuse reports received between 2018 and 2020 by your force which were subsequently passed to the Home Office to review or check the immigration status of the individual making the report.
Please break down the information by year, as follows:
Number of domestic abuse reports passed to the Home Office for reasons relating to immigration status:
2018:
2019:
2020
Disclosure with exemptions
Full Refusal with S12 Exemption
Information correct as at
30 March 2021
Date of disclosure
21 April 2021
Related documents
N/A
FOI 15516 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 are unable to accurately extract the level of detail in relation to your request from our current systems. Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not primarily for the production of statistical information for FOI responses. This request would entail manually extracting the requested data and then reviewing each investigation report one by one to establish the immigration status of those whom are involved in Domestic Abuse as the immigration status is not frequently recorded on our systems. Due process will be given to those individuals, however, this may be within the investigation, outside the investigation or as a separate entity all together. In addition, there is no requirement to record nationality when crimes are input onto the Athena system. 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.
Section 16(1) of the FOIA provides that a public authority is required to provide advice and assistance, Essex Police can confirm that general Domestic Abuse/Violence Incident/Offence statistics including ethnicity, gender and age can be provided if required.
The intention of Section 16 is to provide assistance in resubmitting a valid request. Please note that any advice and assistance under Section 16 regarding resubmission of a request does not indicate that resubmission will provide a full disclosure, each submission will be assessed and if a disclosure is deemed harmful, then the appropriate exemptions will apply.
Please note that further information regarding Domestic Abuse/Violence can be found through our Publication Scheme.
You may also find the below of interest: