Sussex Police have been branded "absurd" after admitted they have no idea how many phones are being stolen across the county – because it has stopped recording the figures.
The Argus requested phone theft figures for the past two financial years to see whether Sussex was experiencing a similar spike to other regions, and what proportion of cases were being solved.
But Sussex Police said it could not fulfil our request under the Freedom of Information Act as the data does not exist.
“Completion of property detail in a report is non-mandatory,” the force said.
“This is due to a change in process that affects how and when items of stolen property are captured on our crime system.”
Labour councillor Andrei Czolak, chairman of Sussex's Police and Crime Panel, told the Argus: "I think it's absurd. This is obviously a crime that affects a lot of people. The data nationally suggests there's been a marked increase.
"The idea that it's not being monitored is quite worrying and I think questions should be asked about why that is and whether it's a disservice."
As inflation has soared and the economy has stuttered, thefts of phones – which can be worth upwards of £1,000 – have soared.
The government vowed in September to crack down on the problem, with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper saying she may give police more powers, after incidents rose by 150 per cent nationally in one year.
But that figure could, it seems, be an underestimate, as at least one force – Sussex – is not counting.
The force told us it would not know how many phones were being stolen in its jurisdiction without conducting an audit of crime reports.
“Within our crime report, our officers and staff would document that a phone has been stolen as part of the investigative plan,” a spokesperson said.
But the crime itself might simply be recorded as “theft from a person”, “robbery”, “or a number of other possibilities”.
The force claimed, therefore, that in order to check phone theft data, it would have to look into all potentially relevant crime records, manually counting phone thefts.
It said this would be too costly and time-consuming a job to do in response to a Freedom of Information request.
A spokesman claimed: “All crimes reported to Sussex Police are recorded in line with Home Office counting rules.”
Cllr Czolak told the Argus: "This is a theme with law enforcement more generally - a failure to recognise how significant these things are. Our entire lives exist on our phones.
"If my phone is stolen, it's the equivalent of me going to a police station 20, 30 years ago and saying, 'I've been burgled and they've taken all my financial records, my access to funds, all my personal information and almost everything I use on a daily basis', and the police going, 'Okay, well we're not going to keep a record of that'."
While Sussex Police claims it is following government rules, it appears to be out of step with other police forces.
When we aked Essex Police how many phones had been stolen in the same period, it was collecting the data and quickly supplied it – right down to which month each phone was reported stolen in and whether each individual case had been solved.
Those figures showed Essex was bucking the national trend, with phone thefts falling – but only 1% were resulting in a charge, summons or caution.
"I will look to raise this with the commissioner at the next Police and Crime Panel," said Cllr Czolak.
"We should be able to monitor this and whether it's something the police are on top of - and if not, why not.
"How can they improve things if they're not keeping data on them?"
Sussex Police said: “Anyone who has had their phone stolen should report it to police and it will be recorded and investigated.”
*Got a story for our investigations reporter? Email charles.thomson@newsquest.co.uk with the subject heading, 'SUSSEX TIP'.
