FOI 16051-25 - Parcel Theft

Request:

1. How many instances of parcel theft (i.e. parcels stolen from someone's doorstep, porch or lobby) were reported between the following dates: 01/01/2021 - 13/08/2025? I would like this information to be broken down by calendar year, and with the results for 2025 so far separate

2. Please could you share a breakdown of these instances by month for each of the date ranges provided (i.e Jan 2021, Feb 2021 etc through to Aug 2025 so far)

3. What is the total reported value of stolen parcels for the date range provided, broken down by calendar year (and for 2025, the results so far). If not all reported thefts have had the value of the good provided, please could you share the information for the number of parcel thefts that do have a monetary value attached and the total cost of those?

4. Please could you share a breakdown of these costs by month for the date range provided? (If this element of the request is going to be too time consuming, please get back in touch with me as I would not want the whole FOI to be rejected over one question)

5. What is the most common time of day for parcel thefts to be reported? I would like this information to be broken down by calendar year (based on the date ranges provided)

a.06:00 - 09:00

b.09:01 - 17:00

c.17:01 - 22:00

d.22:01 - 06:00

6. Could you let me know the number of thefts, broken down by month, that have led to an arrest?

7. Following on from this, please could you also provide the number of parcel thefts, by month, that have resulted in a charge?

8. And finally, the number of parcel thefts, by month, that have led to a successful conviction? Please could you also provide the sentence (if this is going to be too time consuming, please just provide the number of convictions)

Clarified as follows:

4. “Costs” refers to monetary value of the parcels
5. The time of day thefts have been reported to have If there is a time range that straddles multiple of the provided ranges, please could you provide the earliest time for each reported incident/when the incident started e.g. if one took place from 05:57 - 06:05 please include that in 22:01 - 06:00
6. Specifically parcel/postal delivery thefts

Response:

Search from 01/01/2021 to 13/08/2025, using crime tree level 2 'All thefts' and a free text search for 'Parcel'.

As with any keyword search, the search will only return exact matches within the Incident Description or Crime MO. This does not account for differences in terminology and/or spelling used. Keyword searches are problematic and in no way provide accurate results or figures. If the selected key words have not been mentioned the data will not be returned. Vice versa, if the key words have been mentioned in an unrelated context, irrelevant data will be collected.

Question 1:

2021 – 263

2022 – 368

2023 – 267

2024 – 260

2025 – 183

Question 2: 

Questions 3 and 4:

It is not a requirement of Northamptonshire Police to record the value of items stolen. Officers are not qualified at 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 parcel thefts.

Of 1341 reported thefts in this data, only 101 have a recorded value attached. For this reason, we are unable to answer these questions, but have included the below in the spirit of providing what assistance we can:

Question 5:

The time period in which an occurrence is believed to have taken place may range from a very precise window to a period of months or more. The data provided is based on the earliest possible time given, but may not accurately reflect when these thefts took place. A high level of caution should be taken in attempting to interpret this data.

One occurrence in 2023 and one in 2025 do not have a recorded start time.

Question 6:

Question 7:

The following data include outcome codes 1: Charged and 1A: Alternate offence charged.

Question 8:

As advised in previous correspondence, Northamptonshire Police do not hold information on convictions or sentencing. This information is held by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS).

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.

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 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.