Every day, more than 200 people in England and Wales fall victim to phone and bag snatchers, marking a dramatic rise in thefts, according to the Home Office. This surge has more than doubled the rate of such crimes compared to last year, reaching the highest level in a decade.
In response to this alarming trend, ministers are taking urgent steps to address the issue. Policing Minister Diana Johnson has summoned representatives from technology and phone companies to a summit, urging them to develop measures to “design out” mobile phone robbery.
The goal is to make it easier to quickly, easily, and permanently disable stolen phones, preventing them from being re-registered and sold on the second-hand market.
Johnson reiterated, “Phone companies must ensure that any stolen phones can be quickly, easily and permanently disabled. We are determined to do whatever is necessary to protect people entitled to walk the streets without the threat of robbery.”
The rise in thefts is staggering. Last year, there were 78,000 reported cases of snatch thefts, predominantly targeting phones but also bags. This represents an increase of 153% from the 31,000 cases recorded in the year to March 2023. The current figure is not only the highest in a decade but also 60% higher than the ten-year average.
The spike in thefts has not gone unnoticed by law enforcement. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) crime survey indicates that theft from individuals has risen by more than a third in the past year, totaling over 130,000 incidents. A significant portion of these crimes, around 36%, involve mobile phones being stolen.
Police believe that the surge in snatch thefts is driven by the lucrative market for repurposing and selling stolen phones both within the UK and overseas. To combat this, police chiefs have been directed to attend the upcoming Home Office summit with phone manufacturers. The focus will be on finding ways to disable stolen phones, making it impossible for criminals to link them back into mobile networks or sell them abroad.
Additionally, the police have been tasked with launching a fast-track research project under Operation Opal, a national intelligence unit. This project aims to gather more information about who is stealing these phones and where they end up. The findings could be crucial in developing strategies to curb the rising tide of thefts.
The gravity of the situation is further underscored by statistics from London, where 70% of all thefts last year were related to mobile phones. According to an analysis by the Metropolitan Police, a staggering 90,864 phones were stolen across the capital in 2022, averaging almost 250 per day, or one every six minutes.
Commander Richard Smith, who leads the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s efforts against personal robbery, highlighted the traumatic nature of these crimes.
“Criminals often target some of the most vulnerable in society, such as children, with threats that violence may be used. We continue to target those habitual criminals responsible for prolific offending, whilst working to prevent young people from getting into this type of offending,” Smith said.
Smith also acknowledged that while police efforts are crucial, they cannot solve the problem alone.
“We know that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem,” he said, calling on manufacturers and the tech industry to play a key role in reducing opportunities for criminals to profit from stolen handsets.
The government’s approach combines law enforcement action with efforts to break the business model that fuels phone thefts. Operation Calibre, a recent week of national police action, targeted over 1,250 hotspot areas. However, as Johnson and Smith both stressed, a coordinated effort involving the government, tech companies, and law enforcement is essential to protect the public and disrupt the criminal networks behind these thefts.