Stolen pets (1148A/22)
Request
I am requesting the number of thefts be broken down:
– By specific breed
– Over the last five years, by calendar year (2017-2022 to current date).
If possible, I am requesting to know the average cost of each theft.
Response
Please find attached (1148A 22 attachment) our response.
Due to a major change in West Midlands Police recording systems, the information that you have requested for April 2021 onwards cannot be retrieved. Therefore, unfortunately, we are unable to provide this to you. However, we can provide the previous years as requested.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this may cause
In relation to the average cost, the information you requested is not held by West Midlands Police.
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 considered 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 considered 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.
As recommended as good practice by the Information Commissioner’s Office a version of this response may be published on the West Midlands Police website.