Knife crime and violent offences (FOI)

​Request

Please can you provide me with some information on knife crime in Jersey.

When you provide information on knife crime and offences, please can you include crimes and offences involving sharp objects as well.
A
How many incidents involving knives and / or sharp objects were reported in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and so far in 2020. Please can you categorise these into offence types.

B
How many incidents involving knives and / or sharp objects were recorded as a crime in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and so far in 2020. Please can you categorise these into offence types.

C
How many cases involving knives and / or sharp objects ended in conviction in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and so far in 2020. Please can you categorise these into offence types.

D
Please provide details on gender, age and ethnicity of suspects convicted of knife crime in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and so far in 2020.

E
How many times were armed police officers deployed to situations involving knives and/or sharp objects in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and so far in 2020.

Response

A similar question was asked in 2019. Most of the answers to the above are available elsewhere. The previous response is published on the States web page. Follow link:

Knife crime (FOI)

A
Telephone calls to the States of Jersey police, reporting an incident are recorded on an Incident Log (Ilog). Using the search term ‘Knife’ reveals the below figures for reports / Ilogs. Not all reports turn out to be crimes.

Number of ilogs involving a knife:

B
If an incident reported to the police or one identified by an officer (Stop someone in the street with an offensive weapon) results in a crime being identified, the matter will be recorded and a Masterfile created.

Number of Masterfile’s relating to knife crimes:

• 79% of the incidents leading to the Masterfile’s were categorised under offences Common Assault, Grave and Criminal Assault.
• 8% of the incidents were categorised under offences Possession of Offensive Weapon 
• 5% of the incidents were categorised as offences under the Sexual Offences (Jersey) Law 2018, including 5 rape (4 rape of female and 1 rape of a male) and 5 sexual touching without consent 
• 2% of the incidents were categorised as Assault on Police / Prison Officer
• 3% of the incidents were categorised as Robberies (Personal and Commercial
• Other notable offences making up the data set include 1 murder, 1 attempted murder, and 1 engage in disorderly behaviour

C
It is not possible within the time limits allowed to complete this part of the question. Please refer to the above link.

D
Information for questions 3 & 4 from 2015 to April 2019, is available by other means, See above link.  The information from May 2019 to Feb 2020 is currently unavailable within the time frame allowed to complete FOI questions.

E
The below table shows the number of incidents responded to by firearms officers:
Spontaneous Firearms Incidents relating to possession of a knife:

Article applied

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.

Article 23 Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.
(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.