Burglary of educational establishments (FOI ref: 581/26)

Request

Please treat this as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I am researching recorded “school break-ins” over the past four years.

Definition

For the purpose of this request, please interpret “school break-ins” as:

Recorded burglary or attempted burglary offences (business and community / non-residential burglary) where the recorded premises or location type is a school or educational establishment (including primary, secondary, and sixth-form/FE colleges where identifiable).

If your recording system uses alternative location classifications, please use the closest equivalent and briefly explain how this maps to the definition above.

Time period

Please provide data for the last five complete calendar years:
2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 (inclusive).

For each year in scope, please provide:

1. Recorded offences

a) Total number of recorded offences matching the definition above within your force area.
b) Number of completed burglaries
c) Number of attempted burglaries (or nearest equivalent classification)

2. Geographic area (structured fields only)

For each offence, please provide the structured geographic field(s) already held in your crime recording system, for:

a) Local authority area
b) Postcode outward code (e.g., “OX1”)

3. Outcomes

a) For the same offences, please provide the number assigned to each recorded outcome type per year (e.g., charge/summons, investigation complete – no suspect identified, evidential difficulties, etc.).
b) If Home Office outcome types are used, please specify the outcome categories (OC1 etc…)

4. Stolen property

Where held in structured format, please provide:

a) The categories of stolen property recorded
b) The total number of offences per category (annual totals acceptable)

If property value is recorded in a structured field, please also provide:

c) Total recorded estimated value of stolen property per year
d) Number of offences with a value recorded

Response

With regard to questions 1, 2, and 3, please see the following tables. However, regarding question 4 (property categories and values) this is not held in a structured format, or even always recorded, and therefore, we are unable to provide information for that part of your request.

Table 1. Total offences:

Table 2. Local Policing Area:

Table 3. Outward postcode:

Table 4. Outcomes:

"We fully understand the devastating impact burglary can have on those affected whether in their home or business environment.

Since December 2022, we have attended all reported residential burglaries, unless the victim states they do not wish us to attend.

Data released from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) covering the period year ending October 2024 to September 2025 revealed that the number of home burglaries has reduced by 21%.

We're committed to following the trail of evidence in all the cases we examine − but if an investigation finds no witnesses, CCTV or forensic evidence then the chances of identifying offenders is vastly reduced.

We also look at the underlying causes of burglary and the people who commit these crimes and have invested in rehabilitation and intervention programmes to help reduce these offences.

The results of these comprehensive measures are encouraging. We continuously evaluate and refine our strategies, we remain committed to providing a safer environment for all members of the public."

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that this data has been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request may be 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 the data.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of data which has relevance 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.