FOI Cuckooing (1027-2023/24)

Request

I am writing under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request information in relation to ‘cuckooing’ also known as forced home invasion which is described in Home Office guidance as “a tactic used by criminals, typically drug dealers, to take over the homes of vulnerable individuals, such as care leavers or those with addiction, physical or mental health issues, and use the property as a base for criminal activity. This is a common characteristic of the county lines business model and can occur in a range of settings such as rental and private properties, student accommodation, prisons, and commercial properties”.[1]

Please provide me with the following information:
Q1. Does your police force have a marker or flag for cuckooing in your crime recording database?
Q2. How many live cases involving cuckooing is your police force currently responding to or investigating? (as at the date of responding to this request - please provide that date in the response)
Q3. How many cuckooed properties did your police force visit in the period July to December 2023 inclusive?

Notes:
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-exploitation-of-children-and-vulnerable-adults-county-lines/criminal-exploitation-of-children-and-vulnerable-adults-county-lines

Response

Extent of Searches to Locate Information

Following receipt of your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police to locate relevant information. 

Decision

I am not obliged to provide you with a response to your request pursuant to Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). Please note that when one part of your request falls under Section 12, we are not obliged to review the rest of the questions and the whole request is therefore exempt.

Section 12(1) applies to your request as the cost of complying with your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of identifying and retrieving any relevant information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

Due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Our data retrieval process relies on a computer ran report which gathers data from specified fields within our crime recording system. Information which is held outside of these fields is only obtainable via a manual review. As ‘cockooing’ is not a specific crime we cannot automatically search for the information requested for Q2 & Q3. In order to retrieve the requested information, it would be necessary to manually review all files within the timeframe requested to ascertain which, if any are relevant to your request. This would involve hundreds of files, which would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act. 

Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Pursuant to Section 16 of the Act I am required to offer you advice and assistance with regarding to refining your request to within the ‘appropriate limit’ (time/cost limit). However, due to the information provided above I am unable to suggest how you may refine your request and still receive the information within the cost threshold.  If you wish to discuss this please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.