Male Children possession of bladed article Sheffield 2020-25

Your request details

1. How many male children under 18 are recorded as a suspect in a knife possession investigation each year from 2020,2021,2022,2023,2024,2025 and a breakdown of each different ethnicity in Sheffield
2. How many female children under 18 are recorded as a suspect in a knife possession investigation each year from 2020,2021,2022,2023,2024,2025 in Sheffield
3. The area in Sheffield with the most recorded knife related offences for male children under 18
4. The area in Sheffield with the least recorded knife related offences for male children under 18
5. How many knife related investigation for males under 18 have taken place on a school premises (primary and secondary) in Sheffield.

Response

Question 1

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires South Yorkshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt), to provide you the applicant with a notice which:

1. states that fact,
2. specifies the exemption in question and
3. states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

The following exemption applies to the disclosure of the information:

Exemption applied - Section 40(2) Personal Information

This is an absolute exemption and therefore a Public Interest Test is not relevant.

Reasons for applying exemption 40(2)

Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act exempts information if it constitutes the personal data of any individual and disclosure would breach Data Protection principles. The term 'personal data' refers to information relating to a living individual who can be identified, either directly or indirectly. This can include obvious identifiers such as a name, or information which, when combined with other data, could enable an individual to be identified.

Due to the request relating to how many male children under 18 are recorded as a suspect in a knife possession investigation each year from 2020,2021,2022,2023,2024,2025 and a breakdown of each different ethnicity in Sheffield, due the low numbers involved for some ethnicities, to disclosure them annually could potentially lead to the identification of individuals. This would constitute a breach of the data protection principles and is therefore exempt under Section 40(2).

However, I am willing to provide a list of all ethnicities within the data provided.

I approached our Performance Review Unit for assistance with your request. An analyst within this unit has conducted a search of our Crime Management System - Connect which records complaints or allegations of those matters, which the Home Office specify should be recorded as 'crimes'. All our systems are designed and used first and foremost for Policing Purposes and have limited search capability. They provided the following information – all numbers are a count of individuals who had a knife in their possession at the time of the incident:

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3 and 4

The data is collated in districts rather than localities therefore we cannot provide the breakdown as requested.

Question 5

Please note, every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that data has been extracted from data sources used by this force for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording systems and information assets.

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/data for any requests may have limitations, and this should be taken into account when those data sets are used.

Police forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures for capturing the data. For these reasons this response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with responses you may receive from other police forces.