A stop and search record on CrimeMapsUK is one published encounter from data.police.uk in which police searched a person and/or a vehicle under a stop and search power.
It is a record of police use of a search power, not a street-crime report. A search may find nothing, and many do.
How the official data describes it
data.police.uk titles the collection Stop and Search and describes it as:
Individual stop and search records, including date and time, street-level location, ethnicity, gender and age of the person stopped, and outcome
It also notes that:
The data published on this site is provided by police forces on a monthly basis. The data submitted goes through validation to check for mandatory fields and data formats. The location coordinates of the stop are anonymised and the age of the person stopped is changed to an age group (e.g. 18-24) before publication.
Coverage is limited to forces that supply the data. data.police.uk currently describes geographic coverage as a subset of police forces in England and Wales.
What the legal power is
Separately from the open data site, Home Office stop and search statistics explain that these powers allow police to search persons and vehicles without a warrant in specific situations. Common powers include:
- section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) and associated legislation
- section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
- terrorism-related search powers
- other newer powers listed in the Home Office bulletin
Source: Police powers and procedures: Stop and search… (GOV.UK).
The open-data record usually includes the legislation used and the object of search (the reason the search was carried out).
What a record typically includes on CrimeMapsUK
From the published fields, a stop and search record can include:
- when the stop happened (some forces supply date only, so times can cluster at midnight)
- approximate location
- legislation / power used
- object of search
- outcome of the search
- age group, gender, and ethnicity fields where provided
The data.police.uk API notes that stop and search locations, like crime locations, are approximate — not exact places.
Outcomes for a search
The outcome on a stop and search record is about what happened as a result of that search — for example an arrest, a find, another disposal, or no further action. It is not the same field as a street-crime “last outcome category” (see What is a crime outcome).
Home Office statistics also note that, for their annual collection, only one principal outcome is counted per stop and search. Subsequent sanctions are not all listed separately.
On CrimeMapsUK maps, search outcomes are grouped for display into find or arrest, other action taken, and nothing found / no further action. For reading those maps, see How to interpret the hex maps.
Limitations to keep in mind
- Not every force appears equally. Open-data coverage depends on what forces submit to data.police.uk.
- Locations are anonymised. Do not treat a point or hex as the exact roadside position of the stop.
- Missing person details are common. The Home Office notes that a substantial share of stop and search records can lack self-defined ethnicity, and that individuals are not legally required to provide ethnicity under PACE guidelines.
- Recording quality varies. Forces have reported issues such as manually entered locations and inconsistent free-text recording.
- Open data is not the same as the Home Office accredited bulletin. data.police.uk publishes force-supplied monthly open data. The Home Office annual stop and search statistics are a separate, audited official statistics series.