Disability Hate Crime (331A/23)
Request
Could you please supply me with the following information concerning disability hate crime, as outlined below?
1: How many disability hate crimes have been recorded by your police force in 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/2020, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23
2: Regarding the yearly totals mentioned in question one, what was the total number of cases in which the victim was:
- Under 16
- 16-17
- 18-25
- 26-40
- 41-60
- Over 60
3: How many of the recorded incidents of disability hate crimes in the yearly totals mentioned in question one concerned acts of violence against a person?
4: How many of the recorded incidents of disability hate crimes in the yearly totals mentioned in question one took place online?
5: If recorded, please state the total number of disability hate crime cases carried out in/around school property (please include all educational establishments from early years to FE colleges).
6: Please state the total number of disability hate crime cases carried out in/around university property.
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide this information within the appropriate (cost) limit within the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
Although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded (see attached). I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of the request.
REASON FOR DECISION
Please note that researching each individual case would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
In relation to question 6, our location description field did not return any results, however to conduct a keyword search for university would exceed the FOI time limit. We would need to search 3696 records, which at 5 minutes per record would equate to over 307 hours.
The cost of compliance with the whole of your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12(1) of the FOI Act 2000. For West Midlands Police, the appropriate limit is set at £450, as prescribed by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, S.I. 3244.