Anti-social Behaviour

Response

The following table shows the recorded number of reports on our command and control system for antisocial behaviour in the requested time frame.

*Up until 04/10/2023

In relation to the number of related charges, Avon and Somerset Police holds information on the subject you have requested, however, I have to advise you that on this occasion we will not be able to answer your request without exceeding the appropriate cost limit.

When charges are recorded on our crime recording system, this will be under specific categories of offence such as Public Order and Criminal Damage.  Antisocial Behaviour is not a criminal offence but a more general behaviour, which may be recorded as a marker in connection with a criminal offence, rather than as a criminal offence in itself.  This means there is no straightforward way to identify the number of charges that follow a report of Antisocial Behaviour.  To do so would require a manual review of each individual report to identify if any charges have been made, or of all charges to identify those with a marker for ASB. Due to the high number of reports this would take considerably longer than 18 hours to complete.

Section 12 of the Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate cost limit, which for police authorities is set at £450 or 18 staff hours. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2.5 working days in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting it.

This serves as a refusal notice under section 17(1) of the FOI Act.

Due to the reasons set out above, I am unable to assist you, under our section 16 obligation, on this occasion in refining your request to fit within the cost and time limits set out within the Freedom of Information Act.