Osman Letters/Warnings - Threat to Life (TTL) Investigations 2010-2021
Keywords
Osman, Warning, Letter, Notices, Threat, Life, Investigation, TTL, Recorded, Calendar, Year, Annualized, Statistics, Data, Figures.
Publication Number
PUB 1361
Publication Statement
Please note that this information is correct as at 02 March 2022 and may be subject to change. Essex Police aim to review and update this publication annually.
As with all publications of information by Essex Police, please note caveats may apply regarding the accuracy of data.
Title
Osman Letters/Warnings - Threat to Life (TTL) Investigations
Date Range
2010 to 2021
Background Information
Prior to April 2020, Essex Police are unable to accurately extract TTL Investigation statistics as they were not centrally recorded. Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not primarily for the production of statistical information for FOI responses. Requests for statistics prior to April 2020 will attract a refusal by virtue of the Section 12(1) Cost of Compliance Exceeds the Appropriate Limit Exemption as any requests would entail contacting District Policing Areas/Commands/Departments within Essex Police and manually reviewing each investigation file one by one to establish the information if held as prior to April 2020, TTL Investigations were not centrally recorded. To establish if information is held would, therefore, exceed the time and cost limits under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 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.
Essex Police will only ever disclose statistics at an annualized force level total. Therefore, this publication contains data for full Calendar Years only.
Requests for statistics for part of a year will attract a refusal by virtue of the Section 31(1)(a) Law Enforcement Exemption:
Harm
Any release under the FOIA is a disclosure to the world, not just to the individual making the request. Details would be extremely useful to those involved in criminal activity and release would hinder future operations, law enforcement and could potentially increase the harm to individuals involved.
Whilst there is an inherent public interest in the transparency of policing within the UK, the Police Service is taking proactive measures to apprehend criminals and there is a very strong public interest in safeguarding victims and protecting vulnerable people within Essex, we want to avoid putting them at further risk.
Public Interest Considerations
Factors Favouring Disclosure for Section 31
Information would improve public awareness and lead to more intelligence being submitted to the Police regarding criminal acts. The public would be more observant of suspicious activity and in turn lead to more intelligence being submitted and could result in a reduction of crime.
Factors Favouring Non-Disclosure for Section 31
To provide any further information could compromise law enforcement and undermine policing, which would hinder the UK Police Service’s ability to prevent and detect criminality in this area.
The risk to public safety cannot be ignored and Essex Police has a responsibility to ensure the safety of individuals is protected at all times.
Balance Test
It is the duty of Essex Police to protect vulnerable people and where TTL is involved we feel that a further breakdown to the annualized force level data could be harmful and put the victims at further risk.
In addition, the effective delivery of operational law enforcement is crucial and of paramount importance to Essex Police in their duty to ensure the prevention and detection of crime is carried out and the effective apprehension or prosecution of offenders is maintained. Any disclosure would have a negative impact on law enforcement and potential national security.
Whilst there is a public interest in the transparency of policing resources for specialist departments, there is a strong public interest in knowing that policing activity with regards to the delivery of law enforcement is appropriate and balanced, this will only be overridden in exceptional circumstances. Therefore, at this moment in time, it is our opinion that for these issues the balance test for disclosure is not made out.
Related Documents/Links
N/A
FOI Publication
Caveats:
The data is correct as at 02 March 2022.
We have taken Osman Letters to mean Threat to Life Investigations.
Data: The 2020 (from April to December) and 2021 results are records with the Non-Crime Offence Description of ‘Threat to Life Investigation’.
Prior to April 2020, Essex Police are unable to accurately extract TTL Investigation statistics as they were not centrally recorded.
The statistics prior to April 2020 have only been provided from part of the force that can more easily collate the data. Therefore, an element of caution is needed when interpreting the figures provided as other data may be held but contained within individual investigation files and not centrally recorded.
|
Year |
Threat to Life Investigations Recorded |
|---|---|
|
2010 |
84 |
|
2011 |
106 |
|
2012 |
44 |
|
2013 |
36 |
|
2014 |
41 |
|
2015 |
15 |
|
2016 |
39 |
|
2017 |
48 |
|
2018 |
50 |
|
2019 |
15 |
|
2020 |
16* |
|
2021 |
36 |
*April to December 2020.
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.