Government of Jersey

Missing persons and legal highs (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by States of Jersey and published on 21 October 2016.

Request

How many people were reported missing, who were subsequently or previously known to have taken new psychoactive substances (legal highs) within 24 hours of going missing, between 1 September 2014 and 1 September 2015?

Please list their age, sex, residential status and how long they were missing for.

Response

A and B

The request is refused.

In the timescale requested, from 1 September 2014 to 1 September 2016, the States of Jersey Police has recorded details of 1025 missing persons (Mispers). See table below:

Mispers	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	July	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Grand Total
2014									24	41	51	42	158
2015	42	24	25	31	51	28	47	56	65	36	35	40	480
2016	69	65	35	35	51	21	40	22	49				387
Grand Total	111	89	60	66	102	49	87	78	138	77	86	82	1025

The information that a missing person may have taken any substance within the 24 hour period following their reported absence is not routinely recorded and is not instantly searchable on police records. Residential status is not recorded by police.

Each missing person report contains information detailing the actions taken by officers over the period the person is missing, including information about the individual and policy decisions made.

To establish the information requested would require a detailed review of each individual case and it has therefore been determined that the information you require is exempt under Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 legislation. It is estimated that it will take in excess of 12.5 hours to collect the information.

Exemptions and / or refusals applied to this request:

Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011

Part 2 Article 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.