UK Residents Can Now Check the Crime Rate in Their Local Area

A new service which records data on committed offences and shows how safe your local area is now available! Simply enter your Postcode, and the database will search an archive stretching back to December 2010 and lists results within a 1-mile radius. Currently, over 1.7 million Royal Mail postcodes are available so the service will not work for everyone. Additionally, you can check the crime rate of Universities or Football Stadiums.

To test this intriguing feature, I entered my postcode and awaited the results. I was fairly shocked to see 469 crimes reported in May 2015 throughout my local vicinity. 243 were counts of Anti-social behaviour, 36 of Criminal damage and 75 instances of Violence and sexual offences. There is additional information relating to the specific details of each crime. For example, the website can tell you if the theft was part of a Burglary or a Vehicle crime.

The real shock factor comes when the data shows exactly where the crimes took place. Each record will list the street or nearby location with a staggering degree of accuracy. On my street, there was a single count of criminal activity which came from a petty bike theft. Whatever your location or perceived view of local crime, the results are bound to cause a bit of alarm.

Thankfully this data isn’t included by law when you are trying to sell a property! I’m not entirely convinced that knowledge is the best policy here and living in ignorant bliss might be a better choice.

Check out Crime-Statistics.co.uk for more information.