Information on Sex Trafficking, Modern Slavery & County Lines
Request
Sex trafficking and exploitation.
1, Please could you provide me with the number of investigations into sex trafficking recorded by your force, broken down annually from 2018 until 2022 (inclusive).
2, Please could you provide me with the number of victims of sex trafficking identified in your force area, broken down annually from 2018 until 2022 (inclusive).
Of these please could you break them down by their nationiality (if unknown please state)
Of these please could you break them down by adult/child victims (if unknown please state)
3, Please could you provide me with the number of sex trafficking suspects identified in your force area, broken down annually from 2018 until 2022 (inclusive).
4, Please could you provide me with the number of charges in relation to sex trafficking in your force area, broken down annually from 2018 until 2022 (inclusive).
Of these please could you confirm the number charged under the modern day slavery act
If any were charged under the "alternate offences rule" please could you give me the number and offence charged
5, Please could you provide me with the number of convictions for sex trafficking in your force area, broken down annually from 2018 until 2022 (inclusive).
Of these please could you confirm the number convicted under the modern day slavery act
If any were charged under the "alternate offences rule" please could you give me the number and offence convicted
6, Please could you provide me with the number of staff solely investigating sex trafficking, broken down annually from 2018 until 2022 (inclusive).
County lines
1, Please could you provide me with the number of investigations into county lines related modern day slavery recorded by your force, broken down annually from 2018 until 2022 (inclusive).
2, Please could you provide me with the number of victims of county lines related modern day slavery identified in your force area, broken down annually from 2018 until 2022 (inclusive).
Of these please could you break them down by their nationiality (if unknown please state)
Of these please could you break them down by adult/child victims (if unknown please state)
3, Please could you provide me with the number of county lines related modern day slavery suspects identified in your force area, broken down annually from 2018 until 2022 (inclusive).
4, Please could you provide me with the number of charges in relation to county lines related modern day slavery in your force area, broken down annually from 2018 until 2022 (inclusive).
Of these please could you confirm the number charged under the modern day slavery act
If any were charged under the "alternate offences rule" please could you give me the number and offence charged
5, Please could you provide me with the number of convictions for county lines related modern day slavery in your force area, broken down annually from 2018 until 2022 (inclusive).
Of these please could you confirm the number convicted under the modern day slavery act
If any were charged under the "alternate offences rule" please could you give me the number and offence convicted
6, Please could you provide me with the number of staff solely investigating county lines related modern day slavery, broken down annually from 2018 until 2022 (inclusive).
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide this information within the appropriate (cost) limit within the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
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:
(a) states that fact,
(b) specifies the exemption in question and
(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
The following exemptions apply to the disclosure of the information:
Section 12(1) – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit
I approached the administrator for South Yorkshire Police’s Intelligence Analysis System. Force systems are used first and foremost for policing purposes and have limited search capability. The initial search of this system returned over 789 investigations regarding Modern Slavery Human Trafficking (MSHT) since we began capturing this data in 2021. Our system does not capture “sexual trafficking” individually and is therefore not recorded in an easily retrievable format, and to provide the level of data you require would require a manual review of all the investigations. At a conservative 10 mins per investigation (as recommended by the analyst, this process would take over 130hrs.
In addition, this process would again be required for County lines data with further cross-referencing with our registered County Lines to ascertain if the incidents are linked.
In essence, we would have to review and manually check, and cross-reference, all relevant incidents to extract the level of detail of the cases that met the criteria of your request; this process would far exceed than 18 hours’ work.
The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 provide that the cost limit for non-central government public authorities is £450. This must be calculated at the rate of £25 per hour, providing an effective time limit of 18 hours.
Guidance from the Information Commissioner to public authorities is that where one part of a request is reasonably estimated to exceed the appropriate limit then the authority is not obliged to consider or comply with the remainder of the request up to the point at which the appropriate limit has been reached. Please note point 30 of the below link:
Section 16 - Duty to Provide advice and Assistance
Under Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, my duty to provide advice and assistance to anyone making a request for information.
Although excess cost removes the force's obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill, I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded.
I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request neither does it bind South Yorkshire Police to any commitment that it will release information in such a manner in the future.
As mentioned in the exemption above, we do not hold data prior to 2018.
Our analyst also highlighted a query whether sex trafficking would include sexual exploitation which did not involve trafficking, or where the victim has travelled of their own volition. We advise you to take consideration of this when reviewing your request. Unfortunately, this would not alter the manual review outcome in the exemption above.
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.