What exactly does “Crime Rate” mean and how do you calculate it?

For the purposes of this site and the official UK Crime Rate (CR) statistic, CR is best understood in totality as “Crimes per 1,000 resident people as per the latest official Census over a selected time period”. For population, depending on the shape, we use census data from 2011 and updated annual estimates thereafter when they are available – 2013 and 2015 for LSOAs and MSOAs.

For example, in August 2015, the constituency of the Cities of London and Westminster Constituency had a total of 4,537 crimes and ASB incidents and had a residential population of 114,475 (mid-2013 estimate). To calculate the crime rate (which in this case include ASB incidents which we know are not crimes), divide the population by 1000 to get 114.475 and then divide the number of crimes, 4,537 by 114.475. This ends in a crime rate of 39.63 registered crimes per 1,000 residents.

It would be different of course if you used the daytime population, 946,397 and again, if you only wanted to calculate the crime rate for a particular type of crime and again if you wanted to include a longer time period. These are all features available with a login to UKCrimeStats.

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