Crimes with Ethnic Breakdown (1570A/23)
Request
I would like to request an ethnic breakdown (either self-identified or officer identified is fine) of victim and suspect for each crime which has this data available in the West Midlands Police’s records. I would like to obtain all the data which is again presently available from the earliest possible point you have data on to the most latest stats for each crime.
Can I have this data broken down annually and decennially (if it goes back further then 10 years).
We contacted you on 19/10/2023 to clarify the following:
With regard to your request, we have made enquiries with our analysts and have been advised that due to the large time period and the vast number of records that will need to be retrieved, it will unfortunately take our systems over the 18 hour time limit to download the data. Therefore, please can I clarify if data for the time period January 2019 – October 2023 would satisfy your request?
You responded on 20/10/2023 with the following clarification:
For the clarification, I presume this is meaning for each crime broken down by ethnicity (of victim and suspect)? If so then yes, the time period you have provided is perfectly acceptable.
Response
Please find attached our response (1570A_Attachment).
Please note that these data should be interpreted with caution. 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.