OPINION - London's mobile phone theft crime wave is a stain on the city — here's how it can be stopped

London is experiencing a shocking emergence successful aggregate categories of crime. One mobile telephone was stolen each 5 minutes successful London successful 2023. In earthy numbers, London experienced over 115,000 telephone thefts successful 2023, successful Birmingham there were nether 800. Per caput of population, London’s telephone theft complaint is 19 times worse than Birmingham’s.

This does not excuse oregon belittle the crimes extracurricular of our capital. Each telephone stolen crossed the state represents a unfortunate robbed of their consciousness of information and spot successful their assemblage — but successful London, this suffering has go an planetary industry. London has failed to presumption telephone thefts arsenic a precedence — starring to immense profits for criminals that bargain hundreds of phones, merchantability them to shops, which successful crook vessel them straight to China for stripped parts.

The Met's crackdown this week shows promise. It shows besides that enactment is possible. But it indispensable lone beryllium the start. It is perfectly captious we support pressing for enactment to halt this falling retired of their priorities.

It is hard to overstate conscionable however lucrative this transgression manufacture has become. Between 2017 and 2024, implicit £360 cardinal worthy of phones were stolen. Nearly each phones were ne'er recovered. Even much shockingly, with implicit 560,000 victims of telephone theft successful London during that time, little than 2% of victims ever saw an idiosyncratic adjacent charged with the crime. This means that if you are the unfortunate of telephone theft successful London, you are highly improbable to get your telephone back, and adjacent little apt to spot justness done — if you’re a criminal, it means you are apt to get distant with the transgression 98% of the time.

More broadly, robbery is truthful rife successful London that it contains sixteen retired of the apical seventeen constituencies for fig of robberies. Cities of London and Westminster tops the database with 3,244 robberies successful the past year, with fractional arsenic galore occurring successful Birmingham Ladywood (the adjacent constituency connected the list). Holborn and St Pancras is the 2nd highest ranking London-based constituency, with 1315 robberies, followed by Hackney South and Shoreditch (1027 robberies), Bermondsey and Old Southwark (918 robberies) and Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (892 robberies).

It doesn’t person to beryllium this way

It isn’t conscionable robbery connected the thoroughfare either, London has go a hotspot for shoplifting. Nearly each constituency crossed the state has seen a emergence successful shoplifting — indeed, the full state faces a shoplifting epidemic — the highest connected record, but Westminster leads the federation successful shoplifting. Taken together, if you are wrong Westminster, oregon Euston, you are successful immoderate of the astir unsafe places successful the state to person a phone, bike, container oregon to negociate a store.

It doesn’t person to beryllium this way. Figures from the Ministry of Justice amusement that conscionable 1 successful 10 offenders are liable for fractional of each crime. These vocation criminals person astatine slightest 15 offences to their sanction — galore person hundreds of offences. In London, it is imaginable that 1% of each telephone thefts are committed by conscionable 1 vocation criminal. By focusing policing efforts — and extending sentences wrong the courts — transgression rates tin beryllium crushed by up to 90%. We don’t person to look acold to cognize this is imaginable — a motorcycle sting operation, conducted by the City of London police, resulted successful the apprehension of a fistful of individuals successful a motorcycle theft gang. As a result, motorcycle thefts successful the metropolis of London fell by 90%.

Despite this, sting operations successful London are rare, and investigations of theft are fundamentally non-existent. In my caller viral video for Crush Crime, we near a bike, with a GPS tracker, chained extracurricular Scotland Yard — erstwhile it was swiftly stolen, close nether the presumption of CCTV, constabulary closed the lawsuit without adjacent viewing the footage oregon pursuing up connected the GPS location.

This indispensable end. Theft indispensable beryllium viewed arsenic the harm it is, Londoners indispensable expect — arsenic each Brits should — that the constabulary investigate, travel up and the courts convict the vocation criminals down these crimes. These criminals indispensable look longer sentences — successful enactment with the fig of crimes they’ve committed. Police merit to person religion that the courts volition convict, and Londoners indispensable expect enactment to guarantee that the manufacture of theft that has been allowed to turn successful our superior metropolis tin — yet — beryllium enactment retired of business.

Lawrence Newport is simply a campaigner