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.
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A fastener manufacturer's PR ranking named Worthing the worst town in the UK for shoplifting. The real driver was a police reporting scheme working as intended — and the force didn't say so for fourteen months. A case study in reading crime data, and in explaining it before someone else does.
On a domestic abuse call, medium is the grade we reach for when we are not sure — it feels safer than standard, which triggers nothing, and less exposed than high. But a grade chosen to protect the officer protects no victim. Understanding what standard, medium and high actually mean is how we learn to grade with confidence, and act on the medium-risk victims we are currently missing.
You have seen the headline: domestic abuse rises 38% when England lose. It comes from a real study — but the real story is more careful, more troubling, and more useful than the number that travels. A More or Less Policing look at what the evidence actually supports.
A new strand, in the spirit of Radio 4's More or Less: police statistics are everywhere, and most of them are easy to misread. Here's how to read them — starting with the trap inside every stop-and-search figure.
