Sex Offenders (FOI Ref: 543A/25)
Request
I am submitting this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding the management of sex offenders under the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) by your force.
For the period 30th September 2023 to 30 September 2024, please provide the following information:
- How many sex offenders were managed by your force under MAPPA during this period?
- How many of these were classified as high risk?
- How many sex offenders currently managed under MAPPA by your force are recorded as missing?
- How many risk-managed sex offenders notified your force of a name change during this period?
We clarified with you on 11th March 2025 and you replied on 24th March 2025.
You agreed to receive the dynamic figure for the above data.
Response
Please find enclosed our response.
How many sex offenders were managed by your force under MAPPA?
4984
How many of these were classified as high risk?
1587
How many sex offenders currently managed under MAPPA by your force are recorded as missing?
73 in total. The term “missing” are those not accounted for. They are not reported Missing persons in the traditional sense.
|
|
Total |
|
Long Term Missing (over 12months) |
42 |
|
Believed Outside of UK |
24 |
How many risk-managed sex offenders notified your force of a name change during this period?
In the past 12months- 16
"Our main priority is to protect the most vulnerable from harm.
"There are 4,984 registered sex offenders within our region of which the whereabouts of 73 are currently unknown.
"This includes those who have not registered as part of their requirement under the Sexual Offences Act, and represents a small percentage of those we robustly manage on a daily basis along with our partner agencies.
"We have detectives who specialise in monitoring sex offenders who work with our partners to actively locate these people. Our intelligence suggests 24 have left the country but we continually work with our police colleagues across the world to trace them.
“As a matter of course, details of all missing registered sex offenders are circulated on the Police National Computer and to all forces and law enforcement agencies.
“Our approach to finding these people is assessed on a case by case basis so we can maximise, rather than compromise, our opportunities to find and arrest them."
Please note that this data should be interpreted with caution. Comparing numbers of incidents/crimes can be misleading and does not necessarily indicate the likelihood of someone being a victim of crime. In addition, the number of incidents/crimes recorded in an area over a period of time can be influenced by a number of factors. Consequently, statistics on incidents/crimes for one period may not necessarily be a good indicator of future incidents in that area.
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that this data has been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request may be subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are considered when interpreting the data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of data which has relevance to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be considered when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.