Taser use / Deployment (191A/20 )
Request
1.How many times was a conducted energy device (e.g. Taser) deployed against children aged 11-17 and against those aged 0-11, during each month to date in 2018, 2019 and 2020, broken down by race, gender and age bracket – and of course by each month in question.
2.How many times in each of these months, broken down by month, was Taser deployed after officers attended incidents at schools, colleges and universities?
3.How many times was Taser deployed against adults during each month to date in 2018, 2019 and 2020, broken down by race, gender and age bracket – – and of course by each month in question.
4.Please confirm the level of force used in each incident (arced, drive stun, aimed, drawn, fired, and red dotted) during each month to date in 2018, 2019 and 2020, broken down by race, gender and age bracket – and of course by each month in question.
Response
Please be advised that the information that you have requested is not available in a readily retrievable format. In relation Question 2 to determine whether a Taser deployment occurred as a consequence of attendance at an educational establishment would be to identify, open and read every log relating to Taser deployments. As the initial location of the incident log may be the nearest identifiable landmark which has been entered into the incident report. Therefore each log would need to be read in detail, to see if this related to an educational establishment.to locate and retrieve this information would exceed the cost threshold under FOI.
Therefore the cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this part of the request and if one part of a request exceeds the fees limit then S12 of the Act applies to the whole request
However, In accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request and can provide information in relation to Question 1 / 3 and 4 and can also advise Taser was not deployed against anyone aged 0-11.
You have also specified age brackets of 0-11 and 11-17. This would have resulted in a duplication of statistics if we have deployed Tasers against any 11 year olds, therefore we have provided data for ages 12-17 and 18 upwards. I trust this is acceptable.
This should not be taken as a precedent that additional information would be supplied outside of the time/fees legislation for any subsequent requests
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here: