News story

Justice outcomes in your area

People can now find out how justice was delivered in their neighbourhood, with new data published on the Government’s crime mapping website.

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

People can now find out how justice was delivered in their neighbourhood, with new data published on the Government’s crime mapping website police.uk

The site now shows how crimes were dealt with and whether offenders went to court, increasing transparency in the criminal justice system.

Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice Nick Herbert said:

‘The public don’t just want to know what crime is being committed in their local area; they want to know what is being done about it. Did the person who smashed a shop window get arrested? Has the person stealing from the local newsagents been arrested and sent to court?

‘The police.uk site is helping to revolutionise the way the police and the wider criminal justice system are held to account by making this information available at the touch of a button. It will help drive up performance and allow the public to make informed choices in the upcoming elections for Police and Crime Commissioners.’

From today police.uk is providing the public with more criminal justice information than ever before. Local residents have been able to access information about crime and antisocial behaviour that happened on their streets since the website started in January 2011. In that time, there have been 47 million visits.

Kieron O’Hara, the Chair of the Crime and Justice Transparency Sector Panel for police.uk, said:  

‘This development will inform the public about the criminal justice system, and hopefully will be a further step towards a vibrant information market in which the public demands information to hold the system accountable, and many providers compete to satisfy that demand with innovative services using open data.’

Professor Allan Brimicombe, Chair of the Crime and Justice Statistics Network, said:  

‘The additional information provides the public with an unprecedented opportunity to juxtapose justice outcomes with police recorded crime. To view justice outcomes through the medium of online maps is innovative and provides easy accessibility.

‘It will be interesting to see what the longer-term public reaction is to these types of data, and how the availability of such data might influence local agendas and decision-making.’

Visit Police.uk

Published 31 May 2012