Last updated: 19 September 2026.
Acceptance of these terms
By accessing or using the UK Crime & Justice Tracker dashboard ("this dashboard"), published by UK Politics Decoded, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use this dashboard.
What this dashboard is
This dashboard is a free, public interest tool that visualises recorded crime, stop & search, and related statistics for police force areas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is built entirely on data obtained from the data.police.uk API and official Office for National Statistics (ONS) population estimates. It is not an official government service, and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated on behalf of any police force, the Home Office, ONS, or any other public body.
Data sources
This dashboard is built entirely from the following official, publicly available sources. We do not collect or generate any original crime, policing, or demographic data ourselves:
- Recorded crime and stop & search data from the data.police.uk API, published by the Home Office/police.uk on behalf of individual territorial police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Population estimates (used to derive per capita/per 1,000 residents rates) from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) mid year population estimates by police force area, currently mid 2011 to mid 2025.
- Force boundary geography official police force area boundary files, simplified for processing; see the Methodology section below for known precision caveats (particularly for Northern Ireland).
Neither data.police.uk, the Home Office, individual police forces, nor ONS have reviewed, endorsed, or approved this dashboard or any figure derived from their data.
Methodology
This dashboard performs independent processing on top of the raw sources listed above. In summary:
- Aggregation. Monthly crime and stop & search records are fetched per force (using each force's real geographic boundary where available, falling back to a 1 mile HQ radius sample for forces without one, e.g. British Transport Police) and summarised into per force and national totals.
-
De-duplication. National and regional totals are de-duplicated using each
crime record's unique
persistent_id, since boundary tiling and force area overlaps can otherwise double count the same real world crime. - Per capita rates. Crime rates per 1,000 residents are calculated by dividing force level crime counts by the closest available ONS mid year population estimate for that force area and year; rates are omitted where no meaningful resident population exists (British Transport Police, City of London Police).
- Rolling 12 month totals. Smoothed trailing 12 month sums are calculated from however many of the preceding 12 published months are available, to reduce single month noise and reporting lag revisions, the actual window used is always disclosed alongside the figure.
- Regional rollups. Country level (England / Wales / Northern Ireland) figures sum their constituent forces using the same de-duplication logic as the national total. Scotland is not covered, as Police Scotland does not publish through data.police.uk.
Full implementation detail, including the data pipeline's source code, is published in the GitHub repository's README, for anyone who wants to audit or reproduce the methodology exactly.
No warranty, use at your own risk
This dashboard is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or fitness for a particular purpose. In particular, and without limiting the general disclaimer above:
- Figures may be incomplete, delayed, revised after publication (e.g. as court outcomes are recorded), or affected by known data quality issues explained via the (i) info icons throughout the dashboard (e.g. de-duplication, boundary precision, coverage caps, and geo sampling caveats for specific forces).
- Underlying source data may itself contain errors, omissions, or reporting inconsistencies introduced by data.police.uk, individual police forces, or ONS.
- This dashboard, its underlying pipeline, and its published JSON data files may be unavailable, incorrect, or discontinued at any time without notice.
- API rate limits, coverage caps, and missing records may result in incomplete datasets for certain forces or months. Geographic boundaries are approximate and may not precisely match operational police force areas. Crime locations are approximate and may be displaced or anonymised by Police.uk for privacy reasons. Crime categories and outcomes may be reclassified or updated after initial publication by the source data providers.
- Population estimates are based on the latest available ONS mid year data, which may not reflect real time population changes.
You should not rely on this dashboard as the sole basis for any legal, financial, safety, journalistic, or other significant decision. Always refer to official sources (data.police.uk, individual police force publications, and ONS) to verify any figure before relying on it.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, UK Politics Decoded and its contributors shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or other damages arising from your use of, or inability to use, this dashboard or the data it displays.
Underlying data and source code licensing
The published JSON data files that power this dashboard are available in the public GitHub repository and are, in turn, derived from open data published under the Open Government Licence (via data.police.uk) and ONS open data. You are free to reuse the published JSON data yourself, subject to the same underlying licence terms that apply to that source data, check the repository for the specific licence terms that apply to this project's own code and compiled outputs.
Acceptable use
You agree not to use this dashboard in any way that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair it (for example, automated scraping at a rate that degrades service for other users, please fetch the underlying JSON files from GitHub directly for bulk/automated use instead), or to misrepresent the figures shown as being more precise, complete, or officially endorsed than the caveats on this page describe.
Responsible use & how to reference this dashboard
This dashboard is an analytical layer built on public data, not an official statistical product in its own right. When using figures derived from this dashboard in reporting, analysis, or commentary, please reference the underlying official sources alongside UK Politics Decoded's processing, so readers understand:
- data.police.uk and ONS are the authoritative, original data providers;
- UK Politics Decoded performs independent processing, aggregation, and analysis on top of that data
- this dashboard is not an official statistical product, and figures should be verified against the original sources before being relied on for any significant decision.
Appropriate wording for citing this dashboard includes, for example:
- "According to UK Politics Decoded's analysis of Police.uk monthly crime data…"
- "Based on UK Politics Decoded's processing of ONS mid 2025 population estimates…"
- "UK Politics Decoded's Crime & Justice Tracker shows that…"
When referencing a specific figure, please also link back to this dashboard (crime-tracker.ukpoliticsdecoded.uk) and, where practical, the specific month shown, so readers can check the same caveats (coverage, de-duplication, methodology, boundary precision) that applied when the figure was produced. Please do not present figures from this dashboard as official Home Office, police force, or ONS statistics, and do not strip out the data quality caveats described via the (i) info icons when quoting a figure out of context.
Changes to these terms
These terms may be updated from time to time, continued use of this dashboard after changes are published constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.
Contact
Questions about these terms can be directed via UK Politics Decoded.