FOI.23.004411.E - Prohibited Offensive Weapons

 

Request

 

I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information. Please may you provide me with:

• 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

 

The Freedom of Information Act requires that this request is dealt with in a manner that is motive and applicant blind. A disclosure under this legislation is considered a disclosure to the world and is considered to be on the basis that it is in the public interest.

This response is unique to Humberside Police, and you are advised not to compare this like for like with any other force’s response you receive.

 

Response

Following liaison with our Performance and Demand team, the following information can be disclosed:

Please note that our data goes as far back as April 2019, and we do not record the type of weapon used. Please find the PDF attached.

However, I provide the following link for data pre 2019 from the Office of National Statistics which may be of use to you Crime in England and Wales: Police Force Area
data tables - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk).

Please note that police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide information and statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. It should be noted that for these reasons this force’s response to your questions should not be used for the comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.

If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected] or 01482 578662.

Information Governance Unit Humberside Police

You can view our complaints procedure here.