Knife Crime (1616A/23)
Request
The total number of knife crimes recorded each year from 2013 to date, broken down by year
Of these, over the same time period broken down by year, how many involved the use of a prohibited offensive weapon or blade, such as a zombie knife or machete, or other specified offensive weapon as per the The Criminal Justice Act (Offensive Weapons) see Annex A https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-offensive-weapons-act-2019/statutory-guidance-offensive-weapons-act-2019-accessible-version#annex-a–list-of-offensive-weapons
If possible, please provide a breakdown of these by type of offensive weapon.
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). We are unable to extract data for Knife Crime ADR160 prior to April 2019, to search for data prior to this date would require a manual review of all relevant records for 2013 – end of March 2019, this search would exceed the FOI time limit.
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.