Dating App Crimes (399A/21)
Request
ORIGINAL REQUEST
I am currently undertaking a PhD research project with Swansea University, and would like to request information relating to specific past crimes.
I would like to request information that your force holds, in relation to any crimes committed specifically against men of any age, race or sexuality, relating to the LGBT+ dating app Grindr (commonly mis-spelt Grinder) or crimes relating to any other forms of dating apps or online dating sites in the last four years.
I realise this is quite a specific information request, so hopefully you will be able to help me with my research.
CLARIFICATION
I need the number of crimes committed against men in general, so any man of any age race etc; on the apps Grindr, tinder, scruff and chappy. If possible a breakdown of the category of the crimes, and a brief description would be helpful but only if that’s possible.
I did initially say any apps, but now realise that was probably too broad a request so just those four would be fine. The perpetrator/s of the crimes can be any gender, as some people have asked me that as well.
Response
Please find attached our response.
Please note: We have provided data using a keyword search of Grindr and Tinder, however this doesn’t include spelling variations, please find these figures attached.
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.