Offensive weapon statistics (FOI)Offensive weapon statistics (FOI)
Produced by the Freedom of Information officeAuthored by Government of Jersey and published on
12 October 2021.Prepared internally, no external costs.
Request
A
How many incidents concerning offensive weapons (including knives) involving people under the age of 18 were reported to police in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and so far in 2021.
B
How many incidents concerning offensive weapons (including knives) were recorded as a crime by a person under the age of 18 in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and so far in 2021.
C
How many times have the States of Jersey Police been called to schools to deal with reports of students being in possession of knives or offensive weapons on school premises in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and so far in 2021
Response
An offensive weapon is defined by Article 43(3) of the Firearms (Jersey) Law 2000 as, “any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him or her for such use by him or her or by some other person”.
A
Incident reports are neither categorised by offence type such as “Offensive weapon”, nor by the age of an individual involved. The total number of incidents that simply mention a potential type of weapon recorded during the relevant time period exceeds 5,000. This figure will include, for example, any mention of the Cock and “Bottle” Public House, that a “bottle” of alcohol might have been seized during a drink-drive investigation, or that a child had a toy “gun”.
In order to identify the number of actual offensive weapons involving persons under the age of 18 will require a manual search of the system. Estimating that 1 minute is required to search each incident report, the time required would significantly exceed the maximum time required to answer this question. Article 16(1) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 is therefore engaged, and a response is declined.
B and C
| | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | Total |
| Possession of offensive weapon recorded as a crime by an individual under 18 years | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 24 |
| Number of times police called to a school in relation to possession of offensive weapons | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
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 [Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014].
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