Dog Attacks (587A/22)
Request
Please may you provide me with:
- Whether your police force records attacks as a separate offence
- The number of dog attacks recorded by your police force in each of the years from 2017 to 2021.
- The number of arrests made in relation to dog attacks by your force in each of the years from 2017 to 2021.
- How many dangerous dogs were seized by your force in each of the years from 2017 to 2021.
- How many dogs were destroyed in your force area each of the years from 2017 to 2021.
Clarification received 29/04/2022:
Point A does relate to Dog attacks – it should read: Whether your police force records dog attacks as a separate offence. Please do accept my apologies for this mistake, and thank you for highlighting it.
By dog attacks, I am referring to both dog-on-dog attacks, and dogs attacking humans.
Response
Please find attached our response.
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.