We’ve doubled our outcomes on burglary investigations since last year

In the year from 1 February 2024 to 1 February 2025, we have achieved twice as many positive outcomes on offences of residential burglary when compared to the previous 12 months.

Following the commitment in Oct 2022 by all Chief Constables across England and Wales to attend all burglary residential reports, recent Government statistics show that Warwickshire Police is the best performing force with a 100% attendance rate.

We also charged suspects in 7.1% of burglary investigations in 2024/25, a dramatic improvement against 3% in 2023/24.

This compares to a national average residential burglary charging outcome rate of 6.2%.

In 2023, we launched Operation Defender, which standardised the actions a first responder must consider when attending a burglary report.

This enhanced our ability to capture best evidence and intelligence that is helping us to identify potential suspects as soon as possible. 

We have also created three dedicated teams of detectives at three hubs across the county who investigate residential burglaries, allowing us to focus on these crimes in a joined-up and consistent way.

Other actions we are now taking on residential burglaries include:

• Working in collaboration with neighbouring forces to identify and arrest suspects and to identify burglary trends or patterns
• Ensuring all burglaries are reviewed by a forensic scene investigator to maximise evidence-gathering opportunities
• Improving our techniques for gathering digital evidence for more solid prosecutions
• Proactively targeting known “chop shops”, which break down stolen vehicles for parts
• Using targeted patrols in known hotspot areas and patrolling key routes
• Providing crime prevention advice to all residents in the vicinity of a recent burglary

Chief Constable Alex Franklin-Smith, and national policing lead for burglary said, “The tireless work of our officers and staff to improve how we approach burglary has been paying off, and it is good to see such a sharp rate of improvement over the last twelve months.

“Whilst I am pleased to see Warwickshire Police performing above the national average, we still have much more to do. 

“Policing deals with a tremendous amount of demand and whilst I accept burglary is just one crime type, it is one that has a profound impact on victims and local communities. 

“That is why we will be relentless in our pursuit to bring more offenders to justice and this positive direction of travel shows that we will come after you if you are involved in this type of criminality.”

For more information about how to protect your home from burglars, visit our page on burglary.