ASHINGTON, Aug. 5 — The F.B.I. and other federal law enforcement agencies have lost hundreds of guns and other weapons in recent years, along with more than 400 laptop computers that, in some cases, may have contained classified national security information, according to an internal Justice Department report made public today.
The report by the department's inspector general found that from late 1999 through last January, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and four other Justice Department agencies had reported 775 weapons as lost, missing or stolen.
According to the report, at least 18 of those weapons later turned up at crime scenes or in the custody of criminals, including a handgun stolen from an F.B.I. agent's home in New Orleans that was recovered from the pocket of a murder victim. The other agencies surveyed in the report were the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the United States Marshals Service and the Bureau of Prisons.
The report said there were also "significant concerns over laptop computer losses and the possible loss of sensitive data," including national security secrets commonly stored on the government's portable computers.
"It is impossible to determine if the lost laptop computers contained national security or investigative information" because the F.B.I. and the other agencies "generally did not record the sensitivity of information stored on the machines," the report said. "It is possible that the missing laptop computers would have been used to process and store national security or sensitive law enforcement information that, if divulged, could harm the public."
The inspector general, Glenn Fine, said in a statement that the losses of weapons and laptop computers at the five agencies indicated "a lack of accountability for sensitive department property."
Mr. Fine called for several changes, including more stringent efforts by the agencies to keep track of weapons and to punish employees who lose weapons or laptops. The report grew out of an earlier, more limited audit of weapons in the inventory of the immigration service.
Attorney General John Ashcroft, who requested the departmentwide report, said today that he was "committed to implementing necessary reforms and policies" in response to its recommendations.
"I am also directing all of the department's component agencies to take specific steps to ensure weapons and laptops computers do not fall into the wrong hands," he said.
The F.B.I., which has been under intense criticism in recent months for internal errors that may have allowed the Sept. 11 terrorists to go undetected, acknowledged problems with its control over weapons and computers and said it was moving quickly to address the problems.
"Some property theft and loss, to include guns and laptops, is inevitable," it said in a statement. "Indeed the F.B.I.'s record in this regard compares favorably. However, that is not nearly good enough. It is incumbent upon the F.B.I. to have in place policies that ensure accountability and responsibility."
According to the report, the bureau was responsible for 212 lost weapons, second among the agencies to the immgration service, which was reported to have lost 539.
The immigration service said today that through a subsequent investigation it had been able to trace the "vast majority" of the weapons, and that most were still somewhere in the agency's inventory.
A service spokesman, Russ Bergeron, said that while most of the weapons had been found, the agency acknowledged that its "past methodology for accounting for and maintaining these weapons was poor." As a result of the earlier inspector general's investigation, Mr. Bergeron said, "the I.N.S. has completely revised its inventory for accounting for the weapons."
A leading Congressional critic of the F.B.I., Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said the inspector's general report showed that "the problem of missing guns at the F.B.I., in particular, is a mess, and it's been that way for years."
"It stems from weak discipline, lax standards, tardy reporting and few, if any, consequences," Mr. Grassley said. "Tracking deadly weapons and computers with sensitive information may seem like housekeeping to some in law enforcement, but it's critical to public safety, national security and the credibility of these agencies."