Sex Offences (461A/21)
Request
I contacted the West Midlands PCC to ask if, in light of the 9.2% increase in PCC charge in next year’s council tax and recent news, it would be possible know the number of reports of indecent exposure, sexual assault and rape within the West Midlands, whether they were all investigated, and what % of the reports lead to criminal trials.
They said they did not hold such records and suggested I contact this email address to get the information.
CLARIFICATION
If possible, I would like the information for the past five years:
1st Jan 2016 – 31st December 2016
1st Jan 2017 – 31st December 2017
1st Jan 2018 – 31st December 2018
1st Jan 2019 – 31st December 2019
1st Jan 2020 – 31st December 2020
Response
Please find attached our response.
Please note that these data should be interpreted with caution. Comparing numbers of incidents/crimes can be misleading and does not necessarily indicate the likelihood of someone being a victim of crime. In addition, the number of incidents/crimes recorded in an area over a period of time can be influenced by a number of factors. Consequently statistics on incidents/crimes for one period may not necessarily be a good indicator of future incidents in that area.
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.