Search UK Police Stop and Search
ukcrime_search_stopsRead-onlyIdempotent
Search police stop and search records for one month, or with month_from a range of up to 12 months, inside an area — a point with a 1-mile radius, a polygon, a location_id from an earlier result, or a police neighbourhood — or across a whole force with area 'force', which includes stops the force could not place. Returns the total and counts by search type, self-defined and officer-defined ethnicity, outcome, object of search, legislation, age range, gender, whether the outcome was linked to the object of search, and whether more than outer clothing was removed, each month's total for a range, and a page of stops. filters narrow the counts and the page together, so filtering one field and reading another's breakdown gives a cross-tab. Forces skip months and some publish none; the result names each force it finds for the area that did not publish, with the months it skipped.
Input Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| lat | No | Latitude, WGS84 decimal degrees, for area 'point'. | |
| lng | No | Longitude, WGS84 decimal degrees, for area 'point'. | |
| area | Yes | Area to search: 'point' (lat and lng; a 1-mile radius), 'polygon' (polygon), 'location' (location_id), 'neighbourhood' (force and neighbourhood_id), or 'force' (force alone: every stop the force published for the month or range, placed or not). An area field the chosen area does not use is rejected. | |
| force | No | Force id such as 'leicestershire', or its name such as 'Leicestershire Police' (ukcrime_list_reference topic 'forces' lists both); case-insensitive, spaces, underscores and hyphens match each other, '&' matches 'and', and a trailing 'Police', 'Police Service' or 'Constabulary' is optional. For area 'neighbourhood' (with neighbourhood_id) and 'force' (alone), where 'btp' (British Transport Police) is also accepted. | |
| limit | No | Stops on this page, 1–200. Default 15. | |
| month | No | Month as YYYY-MM, or the last month of the range with month_from. Omitted: the latest published month, echoed as month in the result. | |
| offset | No | Rows to skip before this page; pass next_offset from the previous result. Default 0. | |
| filters | No | Up to 8 filters, all of which a stop must match; they narrow the counts and the page together. Fields: type, self_defined_ethnicity, officer_defined_ethnicity, outcome, object_of_search, legislation, age_range, gender, outcome_linked_to_object_of_search, removal_of_more_than_outer_clothing. | |
| polygon | No | For area 'polygon': 3–2,500 vertices as { lat, lng } objects, or the string 'lat,lng:lat,lng:…'. The ring closes itself (the last vertex joins the first). [lng, lat] pairs are not accepted. | |
| month_from | No | First month of a range, YYYY-MM, searched through month — up to 12 months, with a total for each in by_month. Omitted: month alone. | |
| location_id | No | For area 'location': location.location_id from an earlier result — one anonymised map point. | |
| neighbourhood_id | No | For area 'neighbourhood', with force: a neighbourhood id from ukcrime_list_reference topic 'neighbourhoods', or from ukcrime_find_neighbourhood for a point. Case-sensitive; only trimmed. |
Output Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| cap | No | Page limit applied. | |
| area | No | The area as the server searched it. | |
| error | No | Present when the call failed. Absent on success. | |
| month | No | The month searched, or the last month of the range, YYYY-MM. | |
| shown | No | Rows on this page. | |
| stops | No | This page of matched stops, oldest first, then by location_id. | |
| total | No | Stops matched after filters, over the month or range. | |
| notice | No | Defaulted month, coverage gaps, why a result is empty, and how to page on. | |
| by_type | No | Matched stops by search type, most first. | |
| filters | No | Filters applied, case-insensitively; empty when none. | |
| by_month | No | Stops matched in each month of the range, oldest first; their totals sum to total. Present only when month_from was given. | |
| unplaced | No | Matched stops with no location — the force's unplaced stops, for area 'force'. | |
| by_gender | No | Matched stops by gender, most first. | |
| data_note | No | What these records can and cannot say; read it first. | |
| truncated | No | True when more rows remain after this page. | |
| by_outcome | No | Matched stops by outcome, most first; '(not recorded)' is often the largest. | |
| month_from | No | First month of the range searched, YYYY-MM; present only when month_from was given. | |
| attribution | No | Open Government Licence attribution. | |
| next_offset | No | Pass as offset for the next page; absent on the last page. | |
| by_age_range | No | Matched stops by age range, most first. | |
| by_legislation | No | Matched stops by legislation, most first. | |
| force_published | No | Whether every force found for the area (the one it names, or each located at a point, a polygon's centre and outermost vertices, or a location's map point) published stop and search this month, or in every month of a range: false when any month was missed. Otherwise absent when no force was found, when a month has no row in the publication list, or when none of those found is missing yet a polygon point could not be looked up. | |
| unfiltered_total | No | Stops in the area over the month or range, before filters. | |
| by_object_of_search | No | Matched stops by object of search, most first. | |
| by_self_defined_ethnicity | No | Matched stops by ethnicity as the person defined it, most first. | |
| by_officer_defined_ethnicity | No | Matched stops by ethnicity as the officer perceived it, most first. | |
| by_outcome_linked_to_object_of_search | No | Matched stops by whether the outcome was linked to the object of search ('true', 'false' or '(not recorded)'), most first. | |
| by_removal_of_more_than_outer_clothing | No | Matched stops by whether more than outer clothing was removed ('true', 'false' or '(not recorded)' where the force sent no value, as some do for vehicle-only searches), most first. |