UK Police Crime Data Scraper

Scrape crime data from the UK Police API (data.police.uk) — over 100 million reported crimes across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Completely free, no API key or authentication required.

What data can you get?

• Crime records near any location (latitude/longitude)
• Force-level crimes reported to a specific police force
• All 43 UK police forces with IDs and names
• Crime category types (16 categories)

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
mode	Select	What to fetch: searchByLocation, searchByForce, listForces, listCategories
lat	Number	Latitude for location search (default: 51.5074 = central London)
lng	Number	Longitude for location search (default: -0.1278 = central London)
force	Select	Police force ID (43 forces available, e.g. metropolitan, greater-manchester)
date	String	Month to query in YYYY-MM format (e.g. 2024-10). Data available from 2013 onwards.
category	Select	Crime category filter (16 types including all-crime, burglary, drugs, etc.)
maxItems	Integer	Maximum records to return (1–5000, default 200)

Output Fields

Each crime record includes:

Field	Description
crimeId	Unique crime ID
persistentId	Stable persistent identifier
category	Crime category slug (e.g. burglary)
crimeType	Human-readable crime type (e.g. Burglary)
location	Location description
street	Street name
streetId	Street ID
lat	Latitude of crime location
lng	Longitude of crime location
month	Month of occurrence (YYYY-MM)
context	Additional context (when available)
outcomeStatus	Outcome category (e.g. Under investigation)
outcomeDate	Date of outcome update
force	Police force ID (mode=searchByForce only)
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp of when this record was scraped

Example Use Cases

• Research crime rates in specific neighbourhoods or cities
• Compare crime types across different UK regions
• Track monthly crime trends over time (data from 2013–present)
• Enrich property or business data with nearby crime statistics
• Academic and journalism research on crime patterns

Modes

searchByLocation

Search for crimes near a specific latitude/longitude coordinate. Returns up to 5,000 crimes. Great for neighbourhood analysis or mapping.

Example: Crimes within 1 mile of central London in October 2024.

searchByForce

Search for crimes reported to a specific police force with no associated location. Returns force-level crime data by category and month.

listForces

Returns all 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales with their IDs and names.

listCategories

Returns all available crime category types for a given month.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this free to use? Yes. The UK Police API is completely free with no registration, API key, or authentication required.

How current is the data? Data is typically 2-3 months behind the current date. For example, in June 2024, the most recent available data would be around March 2024.

How far back does the data go? Data is available from December 2010 onwards.

What geographic area does it cover? England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Scotland has a separate police force (Police Scotland) which is not included in this dataset.

How many crimes are in the database? The UK Police API contains 100M+ reported crimes and is updated monthly.

What is the rate limit? The API allows 15 requests per second. This actor stays well within those limits.

Can I search by postcode or address? Not directly. Use a geocoding service to convert postcodes/addresses to latitude/longitude coordinates first.

Data Source

Data comes from the UK Police Crime Data API maintained by the Home Office. This is official UK government open data licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.