Methodology

Crime figures are street-level police-recorded crime from data.police.uk, published monthly by the Home Office for the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales. This site covers August 2017 to July 2026. Each record is placed at an anonymised location and tagged with the Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA) it falls in; the site adds LSOAs up to wards, towns (ONS built-up areas), districts, counties, regions and police force areas using ONS best-fit lookups.

Older records coded to 2011 LSOAs are converted to 2021 LSOAs. Crimes recorded by British Transport Police are excluded, as are records with no location. Police Scotland does not publish to data.police.uk, so Scotland is not covered.

Rates are crimes per 1,000 residents, using the latest ONS mid-year population estimates. Areas where many people work, shop or visit but few live, such as city centres, have high rates for that reason. Historic rates use the current population, so they show the direction of change rather than exact past rates.

Deprivation is from the English Indices of Deprivation and the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation, which are measured differently and should not be compared across the border. Age and housing tenure are from ONS population estimates and the 2021 Census.

Recorded crime reflects what is reported to and recorded by the police, which varies by crime type, area and over time. Locations are approximate, so a crime can be counted in a neighbouring small area. Outcomes are the latest recorded at publication and change as cases progress.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right. Source: data.police.uk; Office for National Statistics; Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; Welsh Government.