Incidents in schools in Cornwall

Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FOI/26/009518/X

Version Date: 04/03/2026

The Performance & Analysis Department has provided the following information:

Data Source:

Crime information system – UniFI

Crime information system – Niche

Data Processing:

No-crimes excluded, Notifiable crimes only

LPA – West Cornwall, East Cornwall

MO Location: Education - College (all), Education - School (all)

Data Caveats / Limitations:

Because of the difference in searching capabilities, results from Crime & Enquiries and Crime & Outcomes have been displayed in separate tables.                                                                                               

Because of the difference in searching capabilities, if a record was present in both the Crime & Enquiries data and the Crime & Outcomes data, it will be displayed in the Crime & Enquiries results.

On November 14th 2022, the Force transitioned to a new crime management system. As part of this transition, a number of reports used became redundant or unavailable due to incompatibilities between the new software and the reports.

The Crime and Enquiries Freetext report was one of the reports that was affected and is no longer available for data beyond November 14th 2022. Further to this, any data obtained from this report is as of November 14th 2022 and does not contain any updates after this date.

Keyword searches are limited to the presence of the keyword, but not restricted to the word itself. We do not have a way in which to review a crimes entire OEL - Keyword data is limited to searching the brief offence description within the MO/Summary. This means there may be offences in which the keyword is mentioned elsewhere, that are missed. To read every crime’s OEL would put the request over the 18-hour fee limit.                                                                                     

Without manually reviewing every record (1,686), we are unable to identify which crimes took place on primary and secondary school premises, and the difference between primary schools and secondary schools, therefore the MO Locations and Venue Categories of 'School' and 'College' have been used.

Involving persons aged under 18' is answered with occurrences where any of either the Victim(s), Suspect(s) and/or Offender(s) are aged under 18.                                                                                              

I am seeking statistical information relating to police-recorded incidents or crimes occurring in primary and secondary schools within Cornwall involving persons aged under 18 where smartphones or mobile phones were involved.
For the years 2020-2025, please provide:

1.         The total number of police-recorded incidents or crimes occurring on primary or secondary school premises within Cornwall involving persons aged under 18.

2. Of those incidents, the number where a smartphone or mobile phone was referenced in the incident record.
   
   
3. Annual totals for each of the five years requested.
   
   

To reduce the cost of this request, I am happy for you to:
•           accept results based on keyword or free-text searches (for example: “phone”, “mobile”, “smartphone”, “iPhone”, “Android”, “text”, “message”, “image”, “video”), and
•           receive aggregate statistical data only, with no case-level information required.

Crime & Enquiries Data