Data Sources
Official data,
openly available
Every data point on Police Map UK comes from publicly available, government-maintained sources.
Police UK Open Data
Our primary source is the data.police.uk API, maintained by the Home Office. This official platform provides open access to policing data across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
What data is available?
Street-level crime
Individual crime reports mapped to approximate locations. Includes category, month reported, and outcome where available.
Stop & search
Records of police encounters including reason, outcome, and self-defined ethnicity of the person stopped.
Neighbourhood policing
Local policing teams, their priorities, contact information, and mapped neighbourhood boundaries.
Geographic coverage
All 43 police forces in England and Wales, plus the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Scotland is not currently included as Police Scotland uses a different data system.
Update frequency
The API is updated monthly with a typical two-month delay. For example, January data is usually available by the end of March.
Location accuracy
Crime locations are anonymised to protect victims. Each crime is mapped to the nearest "snap point", typically a road intersection, not an exact address.
Licensing
All data is Crown Copyright under the Open Government Licence v3.0, permitting free use with attribution.
Explore the data
See crime and policing data visualised on an interactive map.
Open the map