Response Date:09/01/2012
2011/673–Crime Statistics - Possession of Cannabis
In response to your recent request for information regarding;
I would like to request information detailing how many people have been arrested for possession of cannabis within North Wales, by year and by county, in the last ten years.
I would also like to know how many of these arrests led to a successful prosecution, and if possible, how many resulted in a prison sentence.
Our information is set up and searchable for our policing purposes. To obtain the information in the format you have requested prior to 2005 would involve manually reviewing each record on our force system. The cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) regulations 2004.
Therefore, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice under section 17 (5) of the legislation.
Although excess cost removed the forces obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill, I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.
Arrests2005/06 / 2006/07 / 2007/08 / 2008/09 / 2009/10 / 2010/11
Isle of Anglesey / 37 / 55 / 61 / 67 / 56 / 54
Gwynedd / 54 / 107 / 85 / 116 / 85 / 142
Conwy / 80 / 119 / 128 / 77 / 49 / 71
Denbighshire / 74 / 55 / 85 / 181 / 102 / 117
Flintshire / 76 / 53 / 98 / 93 / 81 / 99
Wrexham / 79 / 80 / 109 / 115 / 110 / 123
Total / 400 / 469 / 566 / 649 / 483 / 606
Please be advised that the data refer to the number of arrests, and not the number of people arrested.
Please find the below link to the Crown Prosecution Service and Her Majesty’s Court Services who may be able to provide data surrounding the number of cannabis cases brought to court and the number of persons receiving custodial sentences:
Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the crime data. It should be noted that for these reasons this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.
THIS INFORMATION HAS BEEN PROVIDED IN RESPONSE TO A REQUEST UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000, AND IS CORRECT AS AT29/12/2011