Dog thefts (FOI ref: 2010A/24)
Request
1. What were the total number of dog theft crimes in 2023 (monthly breakdown if possible)?
2. What was the outcome (charge/summons, community resolution, active investigation, evidential difficulties, no suspect identified) for each dog theft crime in 2023?
3. How many dogs were listed with each dog theft crime in 2023?
4. Can details about stolen dog breed, gender, age, and location of theft (walk, home, garden, outside shop, from car etc) also be provided for 2023 please?
5. Can postcode of recorded crime and CRN be included?
Response
Q5 - We can confirm that this information is held by West Midlands Police. However, we are withholding that information since it is exempt by virtue of Section 40(2) – Personal information.
Details of this exemption can be found at the following link:
Freedom of information | College of Policing s40
Section 40(2) allows for personal data to be withheld where release would breach the third party’s data protection rights. In this case, the location postcode and crime reference number (CRN) could allow for the identification of individuals associated with these offences, such as victims, witnesses, or suspects, and releasing this information would therefore violate the first data protection principle under Article 5(1)(a) of the UK GDPR, which requires personal data to be processed lawfully, fairly, and transparently.
Q1 to Q4 - Please find attached our response (2010A_24_attachment.pdf).
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 taken into account 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 taken into account 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.
Attachment