Crime At Church Properties

Request: FOI/13466

Category: Incident and Crime Statistics - Theft

Subject: Crime At Church Properties

Your request for information has now been considered. In respect of Section 1(1)(a) of the Act we can confirm that the Police Service of Northern Ireland does hold information to which your request relates. The decision has been taken to disclose the following.

Request Details
I would like to ask about crimes recorded by Police at churches or on church property under the Freedom of Information Act:

Request 1

How many crimes have been recorded by your force involving theft from/at churches or from/at church property from January 1 2022- December 30 2024?

Request 1a

If possible please could you clarify how many of the thefts recorded relate to lead being taken from the church roof?

Request 2

How many crimes have been recorded by your force involving assault (physical/violent) at churches or on church property from January 1 2022- December 30 2024? 

Request 3

How many crimes have been recorded of vandalism by your force on churches or on church property from January 1 2022- December 30 2024? 

Note: Some forces do not log church as a building type specifically and may instead log location as religious building. For the avoidance of doubt, I would like data related to religious buildings in this instance.

Answers

The following table is based on all recorded offences where the modus operandi (MO) ‘mo_location_subtype’ field contained church/religious building, or churchyard for the period 1 January 2022 - 30 November 2024.

Recorded burglary, robbery and theft offences where property described as ‘lead’ was classified as ‘stolen’ have been checked to determine whether or not the lead was stolen from the roof of a church property. 

Criminal damage offences may or may not have been carried out against church buildings or property. 

The figure for criminal damage listed below consists of the following offences: 

• Arson not endangering life;
• Criminal damage to a dwelling;
• Criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling;
• Criminal damage to a vehicle;
• and Other criminal damage. 

Violence against the person offences consist of: 

• Violence with injury;
• Violence without injury;
• and Harassment.

Please Note:  This information is based on data extracted from a live system and may be subject to change.  It is dependent on the information having been input into the system in such a way as to identify those records that are relevant.