Mobile phone theft

Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FOI/23/5831 

Version Date: 29/12/2023

The Performance & Analysis Department have provided the following information.

Data Source                                         

Crimes recorded on crime information system - UNIFI                                                                         

Data Processing:                                           

Crimes recorded on crime information system - UNIFI                                        

'No crimes' excluded                                                 

Qlikview Report: Property Report                                          

Filtered by date: 01/11/2021 -14/11/2022                                                   

PROP_Stolen_Flag: 1                                                

Category Level 3: Mobile phone                                          

Data Limitations:                                           

Devon and Cornwall Police transitioned to a new record management system (Niche) on 14^th November 2022 and as of, now Performance and Analysis do not have a property report post that date.        

A free text search of niche data for the keyword 'PHONE' between 15/11/22 and 31/10/2023 produced 2420 results all of which would need to be individually read to determine if a phone was stolen.

This would exceed the appropriate limit under Section 12 of the FOI Act

I am writing to formally request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. My enquiry concerns the statistics on mobile phone thefts within your jurisdiction over the following periods:

1.         November 2021 – November 2022
2.         November 2022 – November 2023

Specifically, I would like to request the following details:

• The total number of mobile phones reported stolen in each of the specified time frames.
• A breakdown of these incidents by location. Ideally, this would include the specific areas or neighbourhoods where these thefts were most prevalent.

If possible, a categorization of the types of phones stolen (e.g., smartphone brands or models).

The table below is based on free text searches of the property description for the brand name