FOI 14726-25 Tool Theft

Request:

1. The number of reported incidents of tool theft recorded by your police force for each of the last five calendar years (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024), and if available, year-to-date data for 2025.
2. For each year, please provide a breakdown of:
   • The number of thefts from vehicles, residential properties, construction sites, or commercial premises (if this categorisation is available).
   • The estimated total value of tools reported stolen each year (if recorded).

Response:

Search conducted for all occurrences with stolen property recorded that were categorised as 'Tools or Machinery' from January 2020 to July 2025 inclusive.

Question 1:

2020 – 1044

2021 – 718

2022 – 604

2023 – 496

2024 – 401

2025 – 162

Question 2:

2020:

2021: 

2022:

2023:

2024:

2025:

It is not a requirement of Northamptonshire Police to record the value of items stolen. Of 4735 records relating to your request, only 718 had a value recorded.

Officers are not qualified in giving a value of a particular item, nor are they able to factor in any age or wear & tear depreciation. Victims equally may give a value for items stolen as new replacement value, or the value of replacing with the same item of the same age and condition.

Due to this, any information we do hold would not give an accurate picture of the total value of tool related thefts.

This data should be interpreted with caution. Comparing numbers of crimes can be misleading and does not necessarily indicate the likelihood of someone being a victim of crime. In addition, the number of crimes recorded in an area over a period of time can be influenced by a number of factors. Consequently, statistics on crimes for one period of time may not necessarily be a good indicator of future incidents in that area.

The numerical data presented in this response is an un-audited snapshot of un-published data sourced from "live" systems and is subject to the interpretation of the original request by the individual extracting the data.

Northamptonshire Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not for the production of statistical information for Freedom of Information responses.

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 the data is 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.