Crime by postcode

Enter a postcode in England or Wales to see the crimes Police.uk records within a mile of it: the latest month by kind, and each of the last 12 months. Counts, not ratings.

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Your answer for CO1 2SZ

Police.uk records 608 crimes and reports of anti-social behaviour within a mile of the centre of CO1 2SZ in August 2026, the latest month it has published.

Violence and sexual offences243 reports
Anti-social behaviour92 reports
Shoplifting55 reports
Criminal damage and arson49 reports
Public order45 reports
Other theft30 reports

Each month, September 2025 to August 2026

  1. 505 September 2025
  2. 565 October 2025
  3. 519 November 2025
  4. 518 December 2025
  5. 524 January 2026
  6. 542 February 2026
  7. 619 March 2026
  8. 604 April 2026
  9. 573 May 2026
  10. 630 June 2026
  11. 713 July 2026
  12. 608 August 2026

By kind, over the 12 months

Violence and sexual offences2,859 reports
Shoplifting806 reports
Anti-social behaviour794 reports
Public order465 reports
Criminal damage and arson426 reports
Other theft391 reports
Vehicle crime352 reports
Drugs227 reports

Also: burglary 171, other crime 107, robbery 102, bicycle theft 94, possession of weapons 77, theft from the person 49.

Police.uk says its locations "always represent the approximate location of a crime". Each crime is moved to the nearest of a fixed list of map points, each over a street centre, a public place or a commercial premises, chosen so that every point covers at least eight addresses or none. A mile is a wide circle: in a town it takes in the centre and its shops, where much crime is recorded.

Your local policing team on Police.uk
Everything about CO1 2SZ Crime in Colchester The CO1 postcode district Colchester council

How we work this out

We use data.police.uk's own monthly download, the police's open data, which police.uk last published on 30 September 2026. We count every crime and report of anti-social behaviour it places within one mile of the postcode's centre point, by the kinds police.uk uses: for the latest month and each of the 12 latest months. The download says which forces published each month, so where the local force has not published police.uk's latest months, we show its own latest 12 and say so, rather than count those months as quiet.

Police.uk says its locations "always represent the approximate location of a crime". Each crime is moved to the nearest of a fixed list of map points, each over a street centre, a public place or a commercial premises, chosen so that every point covers at least eight addresses or none.

We give counts, not a rate: we hold no count of the people who live, work or pass through a circle a mile across, so a figure per 1,000 people would be a guess. And we do not say whether an area is safe: the figures are there to read.

Why are the figures high for a town centre?

A circle a mile across around a town centre takes in its shops, pubs and station, where many crimes are recorded, and the counts are for the circle, not one street. Shoplifting is recorded where the shop is.

Does this cover Scotland?

No. Police Scotland publishes its own figures; police.uk covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and we cover England and Wales of those.

Flood risk by postcode The flood risk at a postcode: in England from rivers and the sea, with the flood warning areas it is in; in Scotland and Wales from rivers, the sea and surface water. House prices by postcode What homes sold for in a postcode's sector over the last 12 months, from HM Land Registry. Schools near my postcode The nearest open primary and secondary schools to a postcode, by straight line.

Source: police.uk, from its download of 30 September 2026, figures to August 2026.

Where the facts on this page come from

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.

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