Ministry of Justice statistics and police.uk crime data

Ministry of Justice (MoJ) statistics are the official figures on courts, prisons, probation, reoffending and legal aid in England and Wales, published on GOV.UK. Police.uk and its open data site, data.police.uk, publish street-level crime, outcomes and stop and search records supplied monthly by police forces, while the Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes the headline Crime in England and Wales estimates. Fact-checkers use these sources to test claims about prison capacity, court delays, sentencing, reoffending and local crime.

Covers: England and Wales · Release calendar

What it publishes

A weekly population and capacity briefing for England and Wales giving the prison population for adult men, women and the youth custody estate, the useable operational capacity, the headroom between the two and the home detention curfew caseload.
Offender management statistics quarterly, covering the prison population by offence, sentence length, age and nationality, plus receptions, releases, recalls, adjudications and the probation caseload.
Prison population projections, usually covering the next five years under stated assumptions about sentencing and court demand.
Criminal court statistics on cases received, disposed of and still open in the magistrates' courts and the Crown Court, with waiting times, plea rates and how long open cases have been waiting.
Criminal justice statistics quarterly on out of court disposals, prosecutions, convictions, remand and sentencing outcomes by offence.
Proven reoffending statistics, which follow cohorts of adults and young people released from custody or given a non-custodial sentence or caution, and record reoffending over a one-year follow-up.
Legal aid statistics on criminal and civil legal aid workload and spending, published with the Legal Aid Agency.
On data.police.uk: monthly street-level crime and anti-social behaviour, the latest outcome for each crime, and individual stop and search records, with locations deliberately approximated.
From the ONS: the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimates of crime experienced by households and adults, published with police recorded crime counts in the quarterly Crime in England and Wales bulletin.

Key datasets

Prison population statistics (weekly and monthly)
Collection holding each year's weekly estate figures (population, useable operational capacity and headroom) and monthly figures for each prison in England and Wales.
Updated: Weekly (usually Mondays) and monthly
Offender management statistics quarterly
Detailed quarterly picture of people in custody and under probation supervision in England and Wales, including remand numbers, sentence lengths, foreign national prisoners, releases and licence recalls. Annual tables go back decades.
Updated: Quarterly
Prison population projections
Accredited official statistics projecting the prison population of England and Wales over the coming years, giving a central estimate and a range based on three demand scenarios agreed with the Home Office and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Updated: Annual
Criminal court statistics quarterly
Receipts, disposals and open caseload for the magistrates' courts and the Crown Court, with timeliness, trial effectiveness and Excel data tools that allow breakdowns by offence and region. England and Wales.
Updated: Quarterly
Criminal justice statistics quarterly
Prosecutions, convictions, cautions, remand and sentences (including custody rates and average custodial sentence length) by offence for England and Wales, with interactive data tools.
Updated: Quarterly
Proven reoffending statistics
Reoffending rates for adults and juveniles by offence, sentence type and local area, based on cohorts that are tracked for a year plus a further six months for cases to reach court, so the latest data refer to people released well over a year before publication.
Updated: Quarterly
Legal aid statistics
Volumes and expenditure for criminal and civil legal aid in England and Wales, with provider information and time series data tables.
Updated: Quarterly
Justice Data
MoJ site that gathers headline time series (prison population, Crown Court open caseload, reoffending rate, probation caseload) from published statistics, with definitions and links to source releases.
Updated: Monthly refresh
data.police.uk street-level crime and outcomes
Custom CSV downloads of crime, anti-social behaviour, outcomes and stop and search by force and month for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The site holds a rolling three years of data.
Updated: Monthly, roughly two months after the month ends
police.uk crime map
Public-facing site where anyone can look up recent crime and outcomes on a map for a neighbourhood, and find local policing teams. It draws on the same monthly data as data.police.uk.
Updated: Monthly
ONS Crime in England and Wales
Quarterly bulletin combining CSEW survey estimates with police recorded crime for homicide, knife crime, firearms and other offences. England and Wales.
Updated: Quarterly
ONS police force area data tables
Recorded crime counts and rates per 1,000 population by offence and police force area, the most direct way to compare forces on a consistent basis.
Updated: Quarterly

APIs and downloads

data.police.uk API
Free JSON API for street-level crimes, outcomes, stop and search, forces and neighbourhoods. No API key or authentication is needed. The rate limit is 15 requests per second with bursts of up to 30; exceeding it returns HTTP 429.
data.police.uk monthly archive
Full monthly snapshots as zipped CSV files (around 1.6 GB) with MD5 checksums. The latest file is always at data.police.uk/data/archive/latest.zip; older snapshots are kept only for archival use.
data.police.uk API call limits
Explains the 'leaky bucket' rate limit applied to the API.
MoJ data tables and data tools
Each MoJ release on GOV.UK carries ODS tables, CSV files and, for courts and sentencing, Excel pivot-table tools. No API; files are replaced with each edition.
Justice Data JSON endpoints
Each measure on the Justice Data site is served as JSON from a matching path under data.justice.gov.uk/api (for example, the prison population series). No key is required, but the endpoints are not formally documented.
ONS crime appendix tables
XLSX tables of CSEW estimates and police recorded crime time series behind the quarterly bulletin.

When it publishes

MoJ statistics are pre-announced on the GOV.UK statistics calendar and published at 9:30am, mostly on Thursdays. Offender management, proven reoffending, criminal justice and criminal court statistics are quarterly, each on a fixed cycle; prison population projections are annual. The weekly prison population figures are posted on Mondays. data.police.uk adds a new month of crime and stop and search data each month, around two months in arrears, with known issues listed on its changelog. The ONS Crime in England and Wales bulletin is quarterly and appears on the ONS release calendar.

How to use it to check a claim

For 'prisons are full' claims, compare the weekly prison population with the useable operational capacity and headroom figures in the same briefing, and give the date of the snapshot.
For court delays, use the 'open caseload' in criminal court statistics, which is a count of live cases on the last day of the quarter; the MoJ notes it can be revised as HMCTS validates case records.
For sentencing claims, use criminal justice statistics quarterly and check whether a figure refers to offenders sentenced, sentenced to immediate custody, or the average custodial sentence length.
For reoffending rates, quote the cohort period the figure refers to, since proven reoffending data lag by more than a year and a half.
For local crime, use data.police.uk or police.uk for monthly counts and patterns, but use ONS police force area tables for rates and comparisons between forces.
For whether crime overall is rising or falling, use the CSEW estimates in the ONS bulletin; use police recorded crime for lower-volume, higher-harm offences such as homicide and knife crime.
Check the data.police.uk changelog for missing months or forces before comparing periods.

Common mistakes

Crime Survey and police recorded crime measure different things: the survey estimates what people experience, while recorded crime counts what police log, which changes with reporting and recording practice.
Locations on police.uk and data.police.uk are moved to the nearest anonymous map point, so a dot on the map is not the place a crime happened and should not be tied to a specific address.
data.police.uk records are a snapshot at upload and are rarely revised, so they can differ from force or ONS totals that reflect later reclassification.
The prison population is a single-day snapshot; receptions and releases describe flows over a period, and the two should not be mixed.
Crown Court 'backlog' is not an official term; the MoJ measure is the open caseload, and some figures quoted publicly come from HMCTS management information rather than official statistics.
Outcome data on data.police.uk are not supplied by the British Transport Police or the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

How do I find the current prison population in England and Wales?

The MoJ publishes weekly prison population figures on GOV.UK in its prison population statistics collection, usually on Mondays. Each briefing gives the population on a stated Monday for adult men, women and the youth custody estate, together with useable operational capacity and headroom, and compares them with the previous week and a year earlier. For detail on offence types, remand and sentence lengths, use the quarterly offender management statistics, which lag the weekly figures by a few months.

Is the data.police.uk API free, and does it need a key?

Yes, it is free and no key or authentication is needed. It returns JSON for street-level crimes, outcomes, stop and search, forces and neighbourhoods. The rate limit is 15 requests per second with bursts of up to 30, and the site holds a rolling three years of data. For bulk work, the monthly archive zip or the custom CSV download page is more practical than repeated API calls.

What is the difference between the Crime Survey and police recorded crime?

The Crime Survey for England and Wales asks a large sample of households about crimes they experienced, including those never reported, and is the ONS's preferred measure of long-term trends for the crimes it covers. Police recorded crime counts offences logged by forces. The ONS says recorded crime is not a reliable guide to overall trends but is useful for rarer, serious offences such as homicide.

Where can I find how many cases are waiting in the Crown Court?

The MoJ's criminal court statistics quarterly report the Crown Court open caseload: the number of cases with at least one offence still outstanding on the last day of the quarter. The release also shows how long open cases have been waiting and median waiting times. Excel data tools attached to each edition break the figures down by offence group and region.

Questions answered using this source

Links checked 2026-10-13. This page describes what the source publishes and gives no verdict on any claim.