A UK postcode such as E8 1AA has two halves. The first half, E8, is the
postcode district. Add the first digit of the second half and you get the
postcode sector, E8 1. A district usually holds several sectors, so a sector
page shows published police records for a smaller area than a district page.
What a sector page shows
A sector page covers the sector’s last 12 published months:
- the total of published street-crime records
- the sector’s share of its district’s records in the same months
- the change against the 12 months before, shown only when all 24 months are published
- month-by-month and calendar-year totals
- published street-crime records per 1,000 Census 2021 residents, compared with the main force and with England and Wales, unless the page withholds the rate and says why (the methodology lists when)
- the category mix beside the district’s and the force’s
- the deprivation mix of the sector’s residents
District pages list the sectors that have their own page, with each sector’s count for the same months. Start from crime by postcode district.
How records reach a sector
Published records carry an approximate map point, not a postcode. CrimeMapsUK assigns each point to its nearest postcode within 5 km, the same step that builds district pages, so every sector record also counts towards its district. Sectors are small. A few records near a sector’s edge can land in the neighbouring sector, so treat counts near edges as indicative.
Small sectors
A sector with fewer than 50 published records in the last 12 months still has a page. The page is kept out of search results and leaves out the monthly chart and the category comparison, because with so few records the month-to-month figures are mostly noise. A sector whose district’s own records show a publication gap gets the same treatment, with a note that recent months may not show a quieter area.
A sector with most of its postcodes policed by a force that data.police.uk lists as publishing no street-level crime, such as Greater Manchester Police, gets a short note instead of a page, kept out of search results. A sector with a tenth or more of its postcodes there keeps its page, which says its figures leave that part out and shows no rate.
Sector or district?
Use a district page when you want steadier figures. A district has more records, so one busy month moves its totals less in proportion.
Use a sector page when the district is large or mixed, for example where a town centre and quiet residential streets share one district code. The sector narrows the area, but its figures move more from month to month.
Neither is an address. Both add up many streets, and both rely on approximate police locations. For one address, a neighbourhood report covers a fixed circle of about 0.5 km around an exact postcode and maps where records cluster inside it.
A rate on either page counts residents only, so it reads high where many people visit. See what crime per 1,000 residents means.