UK cops lost nearly twice as much of their own tech kit this year, says thinktank

Hapless UK plod have lost 2,600 mobile phones, laptops, police radios, and other assorted gadgetry over the past three years, according to research from Parliament Street Think Tank. The most recent financial year saw a total of 1,360 devices go walkies, including walkie talkies. That’s nearly double the 2018 financial year’s …

[Anonymous Coward]

What is even more concerning

Is the number of hard disk failures they have when dealing with FOI requests for body cam footage. They need stop buying Seagate.

[Sgt_Oddball]

Re: What is even more concerning

Looks like they don't respond well to rapid vibration or shaking. Such as that taken by running or other physical activities...

Mines the one that fell down the stairs...

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: What is even more concerning

Mines the one that fell up the stairs...

FTFY

[LeahroyNake]

Re: What is even more concerning

Or maybe... I whacked the suspect really hard with my night stick / throws body cam into river just in case.

[katrinab]

Re: What is even more concerning

They need to stop using mechanical hard disks. I don't think Western Digital would fare any better being carried around by a police officer on the beat.

[Zog_but_not_the_first]

Probably pinched...

... by the Peaky Fookin' Blinders.

[Pascal Monett]

"West Midlands police has over 6,500 sworn constables"

Could we maybe have a comparison that takes into account the amount of constables ?

Because if there's a section that loses 1000 pieces of kit but has 10,000 constables, then I'd think it's doing better than another section that only lost 100 pieces of kit but only has 250 constables.

Whaddya think ? Could you re-evaluate that ?

[Chris G]

What're the odds

The three forces that haven't been included will probably equal the losses of all the rest added together.

[Paul Hovnanian]

Re: What're the odds

"The three forces that haven't been included"

We would have audited them. But they could not be located.

[Anonymous Coward]

How many guns were lost ?

I ask, because I can still remember the dozy WPC who managed to leave a loaded pistol on a supermarket WC to a chorus of zero fucks.

[GruntyMcPugh]

Re: How many guns were lost ?

@AC

Many years ago I guested at a gun club with a colleague, and we were invited to a shooting competition with three of the local Police 'Marksmen', and they were shit. A few weeks later I read a story about bag of Magnum revolvers being lost as a group of Police marksmen drove away from a range, leaving the bag on the roof, and I wondered if it was the same muppets.

[Anonymous Coward]

How much do you want to bet....

That at least some of this is corrupt cops with a profitable side-gig in police electronics sales?

(Sherlock would not approve.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How much do you want to bet....

I figure that a bunch were 'lost' because they didn't want to be called in over the weekend.

I might have known someone who 'lost' his pager to avoid IT (DP at the time) calling me, I mean him, in at 3 AM on Saturday.

[BebopWeBop]

Arguably, the "winner" is Devon and Cornwall police, which lost only two devices over a three-year period, with none reported missing during the last financial year.

The winner being the force that has the worst inventory management system or maybe the poorest auditing?

[adam payne]

Hapless UK plod have lost 2,600 mobile phones, laptops, police radios, and other assorted gadgetry over the past three years

Who's paying for the replacements? Oh yeah...right that would be us the tax payer.

[Celeste Reinard]

not missing a beat

... What seems to be missing here, is the number of not missing missing kit, an omission, I gather, caused by sleeping policemen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no I 'lost' my laptop, where could I have put it.

[ThadiasVonBasterd]

Would anyone be interested in buying a toughbook laptop? Slightly used, minor cosmetic damage and a sticker with some kind of holographic shield thing.

[MrKrotos]

Hapless UK plod have lost 2,600 mobile phones, laptops, police radios etc...

"lost"? Ah yes on ebay...

[Al fazed]

Did they

check FarceBook Marketplace ?