Question 1

What is the UK prison population?

Accepted Answer

The Ministry of Justice publishes the prison population of England and Wales every week, with the useable operational capacity, which shows how close prisons are to full. Quarterly offender management statistics break the population down by sentence, offence, age and sex. The MoJ also publishes prison population projections. Scotland and Northern Ireland publish their own prison figures.

Question 2

Where can I find official crime statistics?

Accepted Answer

For England and Wales, the ONS publishes "Crime in England and Wales" quarterly. It combines two sources: the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which asks people about crimes they experienced whether or not they reported them, and crimes recorded by the police. The Home Office publishes the detailed police recorded crime tables. Scotland and Northern Ireland publish their own crime statistics. See our crime and justice sources guide .

Question 3

How do I find the crime rate in my area?

Accepted Answer

Enter your postcode on police.uk to see a map of street-level crimes reported to police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with the outcome of each case where known. Locations are approximate to protect victims' privacy. The same data is free to download, or through an API, at data.police.uk. These are crimes recorded by police, so differences between areas also reflect reporting and recording. In Scotland, Police Scotland and the Scottish Government publish recorded crime by council area.

Question 4

What is the Crown Court backlog?

Accepted Answer

The Ministry of Justice reports the number of outstanding cases in the Crown Court and magistrates' courts in its quarterly criminal court statistics, along with how long cases take from offence to completion. "Backlog" is not an official term; the MoJ measure is the "open caseload" of outstanding cases, and some are waiting for normal reasons. Check whether a claim refers to all outstanding Crown Court cases or only trials.

Question 5

How many police officers are there in England and Wales?

Accepted Answer

The Home Office publishes police workforce statistics twice a year (as at 31 March and 30 September), counting officers, staff, PCSOs and special constables as headcount and full-time equivalents for each force. Claims about officer numbers often use a particular start date, such as 2010 or 2019. Check which date, which measure (FTE or headcount) and whether officers seconded elsewhere are included. Police Scotland and the PSNI publish their own figures.

Question 6

What is the knife crime rate in England and Wales?

Accepted Answer

Knife crime figures come from police recorded crime: offences involving a knife or sharp instrument, reported quarterly in the ONS crime release, with figures for each police force. Homicides by method come from the Home Office Homicide Index, published by the ONS each year. NHS hospital admissions for assault by a sharp object are another official measure. Police forces have moved to a new method of flagging knife offences in recent years, so check the ONS notes on comparability. Scotland publishes its own figures.

Question 7

How many stop and searches do police carry out?

Accepted Answer

The Home Office "Police powers and procedures" statistics report the number of stop and searches each year by force, legal power, ethnicity and outcome, including arrests. Street-level stop and search records are also on data.police.uk. Rates per 1,000 people by ethnic group are calculated using census population figures, so they move when new census data is used.

Question 8

Is crime going up or down in the UK?

Accepted Answer

The ONS says the Crime Survey for England and Wales is the better guide to long-term trends for the crimes it covers, because it is not affected by changes in police recording or by whether people report. Police recorded crime is better for rarer, serious offences such as homicide and knife crime. The two can move in different directions, and the ONS bulletin explains why in each release. A claim that "crime is up" should say which source and which offence types it means.

Crime, police, prisons and courts: your questions answered