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Vagrancy Act Arrests (1613A/23)

Request

We would like to know the total number of people who were arrested under the Vagrancy Act 1824 during the full financial years 2022/23, 2021/22, 2020/21 and 2019/20. We would also like to know for the age groups 16 -17 and 18- 25: the reasons for arrest and the frequency of each of the reasons.

Additionally, we would like to know the total number of people who were charged under the Vagrancy Act 1824 during the full financial years 2022/23, 2021/22, 2020/21 and 2019/20. We would also like to know for the age groups 16 -17 and 18- 25: the subject of charges and frequency of the each of the charges.

We would like the responses to our requests to be age segmented.

 We have attached a template spreadsheet to this request for you to enter your response. Greyed out boxes in the template do not need to be completed.

We kindly request the information in the query below.

We are requesting data for:

  • Annual total: 1st April 2022 – 31st March 2023
  • Annual total: 1st April 2021 – 31st March 2022
  • Annual total: 1st April 2020 – 31st March 2021
  • Annual total: 1st April 2019 – 31st March 2020

Additionally, we are requesting the data to be age segmented in to the following groups:

  • 16 – 17
  • 18 – 25
  • 26 – 35
  • 36 – 45
  • 46 – 55
  • 56 – 65
  • 66+

CLARIFICATION

By frequency, we mean the number of times an arrest/charge has occurred for each of the reasons you have listed. For example, if you are listing rough sleeping one of the reasons for arrest and it occurred 5 times, in the table you would write “rough sleeping (5)”.

Response

Please find attached our response.

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 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.

Attachments

1613A_ATTACHMENT_02