Children involved in serious and organised crime 2024

Request

Within my dissertation I am wanting to utilise police systems to provide me
with some data for specifically in Doncaster to answer the above research
question.

I have already done some research and found that the most prevalent areas
that serious crime is taking place in Doncaster is Doncaster town centre,
Balby, Hexthorpe and Wheatley, therefore the data I am looking to seek is from
these areas and within the dates ranged from January 2024 till now.

And for this data to be based on:

• How many suspects that are children have been involved in serious and
organised crime from this time period that are under the age of 18?
• What serious and organised crime types are children under 18 being
involved in?
• What age ranges are the children under 18 being involved in these types of
crimes?

With this data I am wanting to put it through a thematic analysis to identify the
root causes to the crime problem for research to specifically take place in the
areas that arise from the statistics, so suitable evidence-based recommendations can be formed. I have chosen to use SYP systems, as
statistics within Doncaster aren’t available on open-access sources to the
public on the internet, therefore using police systems makes the research
more defined and enables me to focus on Doncaster as a specific.

Clarification

By “serious and organised crime” are you are referring to Serious Crime Act where it sates “Serious and organised crime includes drug trafficking, human trafficking, organised illegal immigration, child sexual exploitation, high value fraud and other financial crime, counterfeiting, organised acquisitive crime and cyber crime”?

The way in which offences are recorded means that despite all the types of offences are listed within the description of the Serous Crime Act they are not necessarily recorded under the act itself.

I have provided a list below of the offences that are part of the Serious Crime Act, and HO recordable which we can provide data on.

Alternatively, you can choose offences/offence groups from the Home Office Crime Recording rules published here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/counting-rules-for-recorded-crime

If you could let us know which ones you require then this would allow us to continue assisting with your request?

Request

I hope you are well, I don't know if the ones I have chosen are too vague, of there are any problems please let me know, thank you!

• violence with injury (assaults)
• Participate in criminal activities of an organised crime group
• Drug related offences
• Criminal damage
• Burglary
• Theft

Response

We approached our Crime Management Data Returns Administrator for assistance with your request. The Connect System is used to record complaints or allegations of those matters, which the Home Office specify should be recorded as ‘crime’.

They provided us with the enclosed spreadsheet and the following explanation of their search criteria:

Please see attached spreadsheet - 24.011439. 

Criteria Used - Incident Created Date is between 01/01/2024 and 31/07/2024, SYP & crime only filter, BCU Desc is equal to / is in Doncaster, Ward Desc is equal to HISTORIC Balby, Hexthorpe & Balby North, Balby South, HISTORIC Wheatley, Wheatley Hills & Intake, Town, Person Role is equal to SUSPECT, SUSPECT (ELIMINATED), SUSPECT (INSUFFICIENT TO PROCEED), SUSPECT (INTERVIEWED), SUSPECT (NO ACTION) EVIDENTIAL DIFF., SUSPECT (NO ACTION) TIME LIMIT EXPIRED, SUSPECT (NOT INTERVIEWED), SUSPECT (PROSECUTION PREVENTED), SUSPECT PRE ATHENA, Age At Incident is less than 18, HO Group Name is equal to DRUG OFFENCES, BURGLARY, THEFT or HO Sub Group Name is equal to CRIMINAL DAMAGE, VIOLENCE WITH INJURY or Full Offence Title is equal to Attempted - Participate in the criminal activities of an organised crime group, Participate in the criminal activities of an organised crime group

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 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.