Parcel Theft (1186A/23)
Request
1) How many instances of parcel theft (i.e. parcels stolen from somebody’s doorstep, or other cases where thieves steal a package, for example by impersonating a delivery person or homeowner) were reported between the following dates (NOTE: If the request will be too time-consuming, please share the most recent cases first)?
- 01/08/2022 – 31/07/2023
2) If possible, can you share the number of reported instances of parcel theft (i.e. parcels stolen from somebody’s doorstep, or other cases where thieves steal a package, for example by impersonating a delivery person or homeowner) by month for each of the date ranges provided in question one or, if this is not possible, any data that would make it possible to calculate this?
3) If possible, can you share either the total reported value of stolen parcels for the date ranges provided in question one or, if this is not possible, any data that would make it possible to calculate this?
4) If possible, can you share the most common time of day when parcels were stolen (using the date ranges provided in question one) in the following format, or, if not possible, any data that would make it possible to calculate this?
- A – 09.01 – 17.00
- B – 17.01 – 22.00
- C – 22.01 – 09.00
5) If possible, can you share the most common age of the people reporting theft (for the date ranges provided in question one) in the following format, or any data that would make it possible to calculate this?
- A – 21 and under
- B – 22-34
- C – 35-44
- D – 45-54
- E – 55-64
- F – 65 and over
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide all of this information within the appropriate (cost) limit under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. This is because the detail requested in relation to the theft of parcels and the value of stolen property is not held in a centrally collated format. In order to identify this detail, we would need to conduct a manual review of each individual theft offence. However due to the high volume of records, to conduct these manual searches would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
This means that 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 locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this part of the request and if one part of a request exceeds the fees limit then S12 of the Act applies to the whole request.
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here:
However, in accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request and can provide information for the number of Theft of Mail (042/00) offences broken down by month, time and victim age as this was retrieved during our initial research. Please find this information attached (1186A_Attachment).
This should not be taken as a precedent that additional information would be supplied outside of the time/fees legislation for any subsequent requests.
Please note that these data should be interpreted with caution. Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.