FOI 193-24 Outstanding Warrants
Enquiry Reference: 193 -24
I write in connection with regards to your Freedom of Information request, Below is your request and our response.
As of (a) 1st January 2024, or (b) if not available for 1st January then the most recent date this information is available for, how many outstanding arrest warrants did the police force have? And if this number could be broken down by the offence sub-group it is related to?
I would like you to provide this information in the following format:
Total number of outstanding arrest warrants as of 1st Jan 24: XXXX Total number of outstanding arrest warrants as of [most recent date info is available]: XXXX
Number of outstanding arrest warrants by offence sub-group
Arson: XXXX
Bicycle theft: XXXX
Criminal damage: XXXX
Death or serious injury - unlawful driving: etc.
Domestic burglary
Homicide
Non-domestic burglary
Other sexual offences
Other theft offences
Possession of drugs
Possession of weapons offences
Public order offences
Robbery
Shoplifting
Stalking and harassment
Theft from a vehicle
Theft from the person
Theft of a motor vehicle
Trafficking of drugs
Vehicle interference
Violence with injury
Violence without injury
Miscellaneous crimes against society
Rape offences
Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1 (1) (a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Sec 1(1) (b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held. Where exemptions are relied upon s17 of FOIA requires that we provide the applicant with a notice which: a) states that fact b) specifies the exemption(s) in question and c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
Having made enquires within the Force due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record. Where relevant information is held deeper in a record a manual assessment is usually required to retrieve that information and to gather the above information would require a manual search on over 350 cases and this which would take at least 6-7 minutes per record. This is more than the appropriate time stipulated by the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Lord Falconer on the 18th Of October 2004, that is, 18 hours.
This falls under the exemption of 'Compliance exceeding the appropriate limit' covered by Section 12 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and as such this work could not be undertaken.
This falls under the exemption of 'Compliance exceeding the appropriate limit' covered by Section 12 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and as such this work could not be undertaken.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act we have a duty to provide advice and assistance on this occasion I can offer no assistance with regard to the breakdown however we could provide an overall figure of outstanding warrants.
The Cleveland Police response to your request is unique and it should be noted that Police Forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures to capture and record data therefore responses from Cleveland Police should not be used as a comparison with any other force response you receive.
If you are not satisfied with this response or any actions taken in dealing with your request, you have the right to request an independent internal review of your case under our review procedure. The APP College of Policing guidance states that a request for internal review should be made within 20 working days of the date on this response or 40 working days if extenuating circumstances to account for the delay can be evidenced.
Yours sincerely
Information Rights Decision Maker