Cyberstalking incidents 2022 ( 11A/23)
Request
1: The total number of cyberstalking incidents recorded per calendar year for 2022. For clarification, if you can use the ‘online’ tag and these offences:
Stalking
Harassment
Malicious communications
Controlling and coercive behaviour
2: Where possible, provide detail on each recorded incident (e.g harassment, stalking, stalking involving serious alarm/distress). For clarification, if you can give detail on offence type e.g. harassment. Please provide monthly breakdown as per Q1
3: The number of cyberstalking incidents in which the perpetrator(s) is identified for 2022 data. Please provide monthly breakdown as per Q1
4: The number of individuals that have reported cyberstalking offences to your police force for 2022 data. Please provide monthly breakdown as per Q1
5: Please provide details relating to the outcome of the perpetrator referenced in Q3 (e.g charge, caution, fixed penalty, resolution). This information should be broken down monthly for 2022 data.
6. Breakdown of towns and cities data for all questions monthly for 2022
7. Breakdown of age and gender for all questions monthly for 2022
Response
Please find attached (11A 23 attachment – attachments 1 2 & 3) 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 considered 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 considered 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.