A CrimeMapsUK neighbourhood report is a PDF built from the same published police data used on the site. It is scoped to a postcode, a fixed search radius, and a clear month window. It is not a “safety score” for the area.
You can order a report from the neighbourhood reports page. Sample PDFs are also available there.
What every report states up front
Each PDF prints the exact scope used for the analysis:
- the postcode you searched
- the geocoded centre point
- a fixed 0.5 km radius around that centre
- the start and end months of published data included
Read those first. Counts and comparisons only apply inside that circle and window. Changing the postcode, or comparing a different period on the dashboards, will not match the PDF unless the scope matches.
What the report is for
Reports are accuracy-first decision documents. They help you inspect recorded street crime patterns around a place, for example before moving home, letting a property, or researching a neighbourhood, with the method and limits written into the document.
They are not:
- a ranking of “safe” or “unsafe” areas
- a complete list of every offence that happened nearby
- a list of exact incident addresses
- a prediction of future crime
Published data only, no blended scores
CrimeMapsUK reports stay on the published police record. We do not blend in third-party “crime score” products, property platforms, or lifestyle datasets. We do not run AI analysis that invents narratives, risk labels, or hidden rankings on top of the figures.
That choice is deliberate:
- Extra inputs can add bias. Proprietary scores often mix sources, weightings, or model assumptions that are hard to inspect. Once those sit next to official counts, readers can no longer tell what came from the police file.
- Undocumented processing erodes trust. If a number looks precise but the recipe is opaque, the report stops being a checkable document.
- Misleading certainty is easy. Composite scores and generative summaries can sound definitive even when the underlying police data is approximate, incomplete, or delayed.
We want the report to stay as close as practical to a ground truth of what forces published for that postcode circle and month window, within the known limits of policing open data. Those limits still apply: locations are approximate, not every offence is reported or recorded, and outcomes are not a full case history. The report also depends on forces submitting and updating their monthly files in good faith. CrimeMapsUK does not independently audit whether every local recording decision was correct; it presents the public release as published.
Comparisons inside the PDF
To give the local circle some context, the report also shows figures for two wider areas. Those wider figures use the same published street-crime dataset and the same start and end months as the local search. Nothing else is mixed in.
- Police force area. Records are grouped by the force that published them. That force area is usually much larger than the 0.5 km circle. For example, a postcode in Camden is typically compared with the wider Metropolitan Police area (most of Greater London), not just the immediate streets. A postcode in Exeter is compared with Devon and Cornwall Police, which covers a large two-county geography. So the force figure is a broad backdrop, not a “same kind of neighbourhood” twin. For how force areas work in general, see What is a police force or constabulary.
- England and Wales pattern. Category mix is also compared with the national published pattern for the same report window, so you can see whether the local mix looks unusual against the country as a whole.
Use both as relative context, not as proof that one street is safer than another. A quiet residential street and a busy town centre can sit inside the same force area.
Maps in the report
Report maps stay restrained on purpose. You get an aggregated density view of the search circle — with the 0.5 km boundary shown — not pins that look like exact incident points.
Published coordinates from data.police.uk are approximate. The same reason we use hex maps on the site applies in the PDF: do not treat locations as house-level truth.
Outcomes and what they do not mean
Where outcomes appear, they are the latest published crime outcome labels for records in scope. They are not a full investigation file, and they are not the same as a court verdict for every case.
Report options
Current options on the neighbourhood reports page:
- 12-month report (£12.99): a recent check on whether the last year looks quiet or busy in the 0.5 km circle.
- 5-year report (£29.99): time depth — whether that recent year looks typical against earlier years — plus a reference appendix of recent published records. Most buyers choosing once pick this.
- 5 × 5-year pack (£99.99): five single-use vouchers. Choose each postcode when you redeem. No expiry. Non-refundable.
The 5-year report’s appendix lists individual published records for the search circle, but only the most recent 300. That limit keeps the PDF readable in busy areas; the main charts and totals still use the full five-year window. If more than 300 records fall in scope, older ones are omitted from the appendix list only.
After ordering, you receive a report reference. Keep it: you use it on Find a report to reopen status and download links later. Pack vouchers are redeemed against a postcode at redemption time on Redeem a voucher, not when you buy the pack.
Limits to keep in mind
The PDF repeats these limits so they stay attached to the numbers, not buried on a separate website page:
- Recorded crime only. Offences never reported or never recorded do not appear. See also the note on under-reporting in What is a street crime.
- Approximate locations. Published points are anonymised before release.
- Outcomes lag and revise. Labels can change as forces update monthly files.
- No resident-normalised rate by default. The report does not claim offences per 1,000 residents for the search circle. Doing that badly is worse than not doing it: population for a neat 0.5 km circle rarely matches official census geographies exactly, so a home-made “rate” can invent precision the data does not have. Until an official, geometry-matched denominator is integrated and documented, the report sticks to counts and share comparisons.