Pick-Pocketing Offences and Residential Burglaries
Keywords
Pick-pocketing, Residential, Burglaries, Cases, Resolved, Category, Arrest, Prosecution, Caution, Theft, Person, Burglary, Dwelling, Outcome, Type.
Publication Number
PUB 1368
FOI Reference Number
16299
Request Title
Pick-Pocketing Offences and Residential Burglaries
Date Range
2017 to 2021
Information Requested
1. I would like to request under the Freedom of Information Act data held by your force concerning the number of offences pick-pocketing reported within your jurisdiction over the past five years.
2. I would also like to request the number of residential burglaries reported within your jurisdiction for the same period.
3. I would, if possible like to request the number of cases that have been resolved in each category such as cases which have led to an arrest, prosecution or where a case has been resolved by means of a police caution.
Disclosure with Exemptions
Full refusal with Section 12 exemption
Information Correct as at
02 February 2022
Date of Disclosure
08/02/2022
Related Documents/Links
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-courts-and-tribunals-service
FOI 16299 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 for the requested period from our current systems.
In respect of Question 3, firstly, Essex Police are unable to report on arrest data, the custody systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not primarily for the production of statistical information, for FOI responses. So while reporting tools can be used to extract some information via database queries, the system capabilities result that information easily extracted is quite limited. It does not always follow that someone arrested for one offence will subsequently be charged for that offence, and vice-versa. One offender may be arrested for one offence and charged with multiple offences following the fuller investigation. This request would entail a manual trawl of all cases where Arrests were carried out, in order to ascertain for what crime the suspect was originally arrested.
Secondly, again in respect of Question 3, Essex Police are unable to accurately extract the level of detail in relation to the number of Thefts from Person or Burglary – Residential made to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) by Essex Police from our current systems. This request would again entail manually extracting the requested data, manually searching each record, cross referring on the investigation file as the process of referring to the CPS will be contained within each file and then the Police National Computer (PNC) to establish the outcome and conviction data.
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 and in an effort to assist, although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the FOIA, Essex Police can confirm the following, which includes Offence and Outcome data:
Caveat: The statements are correct as at 02/02/2022.
Key points to note:
There is no offence for “Pick-pocketing”, Essex Police has instead used “Thefts from Person”.
For Residential Burglaries the offence name changed in 2017 from “Burglary – Dwelling” to “Burglary – Residential”, both have been used to provide the data on Residential Burglary.
Question 1:
The following table is the number of offences reported of Thefts from Person:
| Grand Total | 6376 |
| Row Labels | Count of Crime Reference Number |
| 2017 | 1513 |
| 2018 | 1537 |
| 2019 | 1304 |
| 2020 | 993 |
| 2021 | 1029 |
Question 2:
The following table is the number of offences reported of Residential Burglary:
| Grand Total | 35405 |
| Row Labels | Count of Crime Reference Number |
| 2017 | 8644 |
| 2018 | 8790 |
| 2019 | 7583 |
| 2020 | 5704 |
| 2021 | 4684 |
Question 3:
In the absence of Arrest and Prosecution data the following Outcomes have been provided, you may wish to note that Type 2 and Type 3 Outcomes are on Cautions:
| Outcome Number | Outcome Details |
| Type 1 | Charged/Summonsed/Postal Requisition |
| Type 1A | Charged/Summons - alternate offence. Offender has been charged under the alternate offence rule. |
| Type 2 | Caution Youth |
| Type 2A | Caution Youth - alternate offence. Offender is a juvenile and has been given a youth caution under the alternate offences rule. |
| Type 3 | Caution Adult |
| Type 3A | Caution Adult - alternate offence. Offender has been given a simple caution under the alternate offences rule. |
| Type 4 | TIC - Taken into Consideration |
| Type 5 | Offender has died |
| Type 6 | Penalty notice for disorder |
| Type 7 | Cannabis/Khat Warning |
| Type 8 | Community resolution (Crime) |
| Type 9 | Prosecution Not In the Public Interest (CPS) |
| Type 10 | Formal Action Against Offender is not in the Public Interest (Police) |
| Type 11 | Prosecution Prevented-Named Suspect Identified But Is Below The Age Of Criminal Responsibility |
| Type 12 | Prosecution Prevented-Named Suspect Identified But Is Too Ill (Physical Or Mental Health) To Prosecute |
| Type 13 | Prosecution Prevented-Named Suspect Identified But Victim Or Key Witness Is Dead Or Too Ill To Give Evidence |
| 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 |
| Type 15 | Named Suspect Identified: Victim Supports Police Action But Evidential Difficulties Prevent Further Action |
| Type 16 | Named Suspect Identified: Evidential Difficulties Prevent Further Action: Victim Does Not Support (Or Has Withdrawn Support From) Police Action |
| Type 17 | Prosecution Time Limit Expired: Suspect Identified But Prosecution Time Limit Has Expired |
| Type 18 | Investigation Complete; No Suspect Identified. Crime Investigated As Far As Reasonably Possible-Case Closed Pending Further Investigative Opportunities Becoming Available |
| 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 |
| Type 21 | Further investigation resulting from crime report which could provide evidence sufficient to support formal action against the suspect is not in the public interest - police decision. |
| Type 22 | Diversionary, educational or intervention activity, resulting from the crime report, has been undertaken and it is not in the public interest to take any further action. |
The following table sets out Theft from Person by Outcome for the period:
| Grand Total | 1513 | 1537 | 1304 | 993 | 1029 | 6376 |
| Row Labels | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | Grand Total |
| Type 1 | 21 | 20 | 10 | 7 | 7 | 65 |
| Type 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Type 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 7 | |
| Type 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
| Type 5 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Type 8 | 16 | 7 | 9 | 5 | 4 | 41 |
| Type 9 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Type 10 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Type 11 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Type 12 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||
| Type 13 | 2 | 3 | 5 | |||
| Type 14 | 67 | 78 | 84 | 74 | 79 | 382 |
| Type 15 | 24 | 32 | 38 | 55 | 42 | 191 |
| Type 16 | 43 | 71 | 56 | 73 | 37 | 280 |
| Type 17 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Type 18 | 1329 | 1323 | 1092 | 766 | 834 | 5344 |
| Type 20 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 4 | 20 |
| Type 22 | 2 | 3 | 5 | |||
| (blank) | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 16 | 24 |
The following table sets out Residential Burglary by Outcome, for the period:
| Grand Total | 8644 | 8790 | 7583 | 5704 | 4684 | 35405 |
| Outcome | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | Grand Total |
| Type 1 | 472 | 341 | 283 | 233 | 133 | 1462 |
| Type 1A | 57 | 43 | 34 | 44 | 29 | 207 |
| Type 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 7 | |
| Type 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 17 |
| Type 3A | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 | ||
| Type 4 | 74 | 20 | 50 | 1 | 2 | 147 |
| Type 5 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 8 | |
| Type 8 | 10 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 3 | 35 |
| Type 9 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 9 | |
| Type 10 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |
| Type 11 | 2 | 2 | 4 | |||
| Type 12 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 13 | ||
| Type 13 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 12 |
| Type 14 | 246 | 253 | 294 | 239 | 166 | 1198 |
| Type 15 | 508 | 483 | 503 | 363 | 281 | 2138 |
| Type 16 | 124 | 208 | 199 | 147 | 156 | 834 |
| Type 17 | 2 | 2 | ||||
| Type 18 | 7129 | 7410 | 6190 | 4614 | 3699 | 29042 |
| Type 20 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 18 |
| Type 21 | 2 | 2 | ||||
| Type 22 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 12 | |
| (blank) | 1 | 2 | 7 | 18 | 198 | 226 |