Stop and searches by force

Stop and searches reported by a particular force.

The stop and searches returned in the API, like the crimes, are only an approximation of where the actual stop and searches occurred, they are not the exact locations. See the about page for more information about location anonymisation.

Request parameters

force The force ID of the force to get stop and searches for
date Optional. (YYYY-MM) Limit results to a specific month.
The latest month will be shown by default, even if no data is available for that force in that month; use the availability API method to pick a date if this is significant for you

Example request

https://data.police.uk/api/stops-force?force=avon-and-somerset&date=2017-01

Example response

[
    {
        "age_range": "18-24",
        "self_defined_ethnicity": "Mixed - Any other Mixed ethnic background (M9)",
        "outcome_linked_to_object_of_search": null,
        "datetime": "2017-01-01T02:24:09+00:00",
        "removal_of_more_than_outer_clothing": false,
        "operation": false,
        "officer_defined_ethnicity": "Other",
        "object_of_search": "Controlled drugs",
        "involved_person": true,
        "gender": "Male",
        "legislation": "Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (section 23)",
        "location": {
            "latitude": "51.127234",
            "street": {
                "id": 532290,
                "name": "On or near Nightclub"
            },
            "longitude": "-3.008284"
        },
        "outcome": false,
        "type": "Person search",
        "operation_name": null
    },
    {
        "age_range": "18-24",
        "self_defined_ethnicity": "White - White British (W1)",
        "outcome_linked_to_object_of_search": null,
        "datetime": "2017-01-01T04:03:36+00:00",
        "removal_of_more_than_outer_clothing": false,
        "operation": false,
        "officer_defined_ethnicity": "White",
        "object_of_search": "Offensive weapons",
        "involved_person": true,
        "gender": "Male",
        "legislation": "Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (section 1)",
        "location": {
            "latitude": "51.528031",
            "street": {
                "id": 548506,
                "name": "On or near Frome View"
            },
            "longitude": "-2.482884"
        },
        "outcome": false,
        "type": "Person search",
        "operation_name": null
    },
    ...
]

Response description

Tag Description
type Whether this was a 'Person search', a 'Vehicle search', or a 'Person and Vehicle search'
involved_person Whether a person was searched in this incident (derived from type; true if anything but 'Vehicle search')
datetime When the stop and search took place. Note that some forces only provide dates for their stop and searches, so you might see a disproportionate number of incidents occuring at midnight.
operation Whether this stop and search was part of a policing operation
operation_name The name of the operation this stop and search was part of
location Approximate location of the incident
latitude Latitude
longitude Longitude
street The approximate location of the incident
id Unique identifier for the location
name Human-readable summary of the location
gender Human-readable gender of the person stopped, if applicable and provided
age_range The age range of the person stopped at the time the stop occurred
self_defined_ethnicity The self-defined ethnicity of the person stopped
officer_defined_ethnicity The officer-defined ethnicity of the person stopped
legislation The power used to carry out the stop and search
object_of_search The reason the stop and search was carried out
outcome The outcome of the stop. false if nothing was found, an empty string if no outcome was provided.
outcome_linked_to_object_of_search Whether the outcome was related to the reason the stop and search was carried out, as a boolean value (or null if not provided)
removal_of_more_than_outer_clothing Whether the person searched had more than their outer clothing removed, as a boolean value (or null if not provided)