Thinking About Policing
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Topic
Reading police statistics without being fooled by them — a strand inspired by Radio 4's More or Less, paired with the live data explorer.
7 articles · All topics →
The Sun’s arrest headline raises a fair question about police activity. Official figures show arrests rising across most forces. Explore what that tells us, and what it leaves unanswered.
What is the IOPC? How do you complain about the police or check your local force? A plain-English guide to policing bodies and their latest verified reports.
Was Worthing really the UK’s shoplifting capital? What reporting changes, population measures and the latest ONS evidence reveal about the claim.
Compare Guardian police headlines with public confidence data, inspect the method and understand why the two trends cannot establish causation.
What studies of England matches reveal about alcohol, timing and recorded domestic abuse, and how police and partners could test their response.
BBC Radio 4's More or Less is useful professional development for anyone working with police data. Five habits matter most: check the denominator, definition, comparison, causal claim and your own instinct to believe the number.
A practical guide to police data literacy: how leaders can interrogate performance data, test professional instinct and avoid misleading conclusions.
