FOI 20925-25 - Garage break ins

Request:

We would like to request the following:
Q1. Total number of garage break-ins in your area in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 to date, broken down by calendar month.

Q2. Could we have the number that relate to garage, shed or outbuilding break-ins specifically, too.

Q3. Do you have the raw data for the time of day logged for each burglary?

Response:

Searched between 2022 and 29 October 2025, returning Burglary related Occurrences which contain the word 'GARAGE', 'OUTBUILDING' & 'SHED' and filtered to these words in the Location Specific Details and Free Text. Also capturing the time of day logged for each burglary.

Q1.
Garage break ins:

Q2.

Shed / Outbuilding / Other related break ins (not including garages):

Q3.
Yes, Northamptonshire Police has a record of the raw data for the 2895 break-ins recorded above. However, please note that this data only records the date and time that the break-in was reported to Northamptonshire Police, which is not necessarily an accurate reflection of when the break-in occurred. This is due to the likelihood of most households not being present at their address at the time of any break-in.

Please be aware that data quality is an issue with this request. A search for ‘OUTBUILDING’, ‘SHED’ and ‘GARAGE’ in Location Specific Details, Location Object and in Free Text did not produce enough searches.

Not all the Locations had been filled out for each report so that section was filtered and a manual read of each Free Text section was undertaken to see if the data mentioned the required words. The Free Text was also filtered to find the associated wordings and these were then added to the Location searches. Some examples include ‘children's play area’, ‘cycle rack’, ‘other’ and ‘compound’. Any of those which were relevant following a manual check of the data have been included in the ‘Other’ column above.

The numerical data presented in this response is an unaudited snapshot of unpublished data sourced from "live" systems and is subject to the interpretation of the original request by the individual extracting the data.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

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. 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 or use the enclosed data, we 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.