A prisoner escaping from a London hospital twice in one week made national headlines. But police data suggests custody breakouts might be more common than we think — and they're being recorded as ordinary theft crimes.

In Avon and Somerset, police logged 50 cases of 'other theft' — a catch-all category that includes custody escapes, prison breaks, and taking items from secure facilities. That's more than their 33 shoplifting arrests and represents 8.2% of all crime in the force area (Source: Police UK, crime-avon-and-somerset).

The contrast is stark: while violent crime dominates at 286 cases, this relatively small police force dealt with more custody-related incidents than traditional theft crimes. Other theft typically includes stealing from hospitals, courts, police stations, and yes — prisoners absconding from custody.

What makes this figure unsettling is how it sits alongside public order crimes. Avon and Somerset recorded 64 public order offences — suggesting a broader pattern of people refusing to comply with authority. When you add the 53 cases of criminal damage, nearly a fifth of all crime involves someone either escaping, destroying property, or causing disorder.

This isn't just a West Country problem. The 'other theft' category has become police forces' way of recording incidents that don't fit traditional crime boxes. Prison transportation failures, hospital security breaches, court custody escapes — they all get lumped together under this innocuous label.

The timing matters. As London hospitals struggle with prisoner security, these numbers suggest custody failures are happening nationwide. They're just not making headlines because they're buried in statistical categories that sound routine.

Consider what 50 custody-related incidents means for a force covering 1.9 million people. That's roughly one escape attempt or secure facility theft every week — in a single police area. Scale that across England's 43 forces, and you're looking at thousands of custody security failures annually.

The bigger picture is even more concerning. While politicians debate knife crime and drug arrests, the basic infrastructure of criminal justice — keeping people in custody, maintaining secure facilities — appears to be failing at a rate that would shock the public if they knew the real numbers.

But because it's coded as 'other theft,' these incidents disappear into spreadsheets instead of triggering the security reviews they demand.