Read street-level crime records from the archive

Reads the selected street files into one table with a fixed snake_case schema, harmonises crime type labels across the three category sets that data.police.uk has used since December 2010, flags anti-social behaviour, detects the LSOA vintage of every file, and attaches a panel contract.

Usage

lamp_read_crime(
  dir = lamp_cache_dir(),
  versions = NULL,
  months = NULL,
  forces = NULL,
  fetch = FALSE
)

Arguments

dir

A cache directory (see lamp_cache_dir()) or a lamp_snapshot from lamp_archive_snapshot().

versions

A lamp_selection from lamp_select_version(); by default the newest archive version of each file is used.

months, forces

Optional filters, as in lamp_archive_download().

fetch

Fetch selected files that are listed in the snapshot but not held locally (needs network access). With the default FALSE only the files held locally are read, with a message saying how many were skipped, so a reader never starts a large download on its own.

Value

A tibble of class lamp_records with columns crime_id, month (Date, first of month), reported_by, falls_within, force_id (from the file name), longitude, latitude, location, lsoa_code, lsoa_name, lsoa_vintage, crime_type (factor), crime_type_raw, is_asb, last_outcome_category, context, archive and file, and a contract retrievable with lamp_contract() whose coverage element marks force-months with no file as missing.

Details

Crime types are returned as a factor whose levels are the fourteen current categories plus Public disorder and weapons, the legacy category that was split in May 2013 and cannot be mapped forward. Violent crime, the pre-2013 name of Violence and sexual offences, is renamed. The raw label is kept in crime_type_raw, and the contract's crime_scope$category_sets records which set each file uses (six for December 2010 to August 2011, eleven to April 2013, fourteen since May 2013).

Anti-social behaviour rows have no Crime ID and no outcome; they are kept with is_asb = TRUE so that lamp_panel() can hold them in a separate series. Rows without coordinates or LSOA code are kept as NA.

See also

Other ingest: lamp_archive_download(), lamp_archive_index(), lamp_archive_register(), lamp_archive_snapshot(), lamp_list_versions(), lamp_lsoa_vintage(), lamp_read_outcomes(), lamp_read_stop_counts(), lamp_s60_legislation(), lamp_select_version(), lamp_version_diff()

Examples

cache <- tempfile("streetlamp-cache-")
zip <- system.file("extdata", "archive", "2026-07.zip", package = "streetlamp")
lamp_archive_register(zip, dir = cache)
#> Registered archive "2026-07" from
#> /home/runner/work/_temp/Library/streetlamp/extdata/archive/2026-07.zip.
crime <- lamp_read_crime(cache, forces = "dyfed-powys")
crime
#> streetlamp records with a contract; see `lamp_contract()`.
#> # A tibble: 2,872 × 18
#>    crime_id      month      reported_by falls_within force_id longitude latitude
#>    <chr>         <date>     <chr>       <chr>        <chr>        <dbl>    <dbl>
#>  1 ce14ac1ee92b… 2026-05-01 Dyfed-Powy… Dyfed-Powys… dyfed-p…     -4.26     52.0
#>  2 b7b0a7355ff6… 2026-05-01 Dyfed-Powy… Dyfed-Powys… dyfed-p…     -4.27     52.0
#>  3 623a7bcbb78a… 2026-05-01 Dyfed-Powy… Dyfed-Powys… dyfed-p…     -4.27     52.0
#>  4 4c442de2c4fc… 2026-05-01 Dyfed-Powy… Dyfed-Powys… dyfed-p…     -4.26     52.0
#>  5 f43e8e6b428f… 2026-05-01 Dyfed-Powy… Dyfed-Powys… dyfed-p…     -4.26     52.0
#>  6 3239e6fe1ef4… 2026-05-01 Dyfed-Powy… Dyfed-Powys… dyfed-p…     -4.26     52.0
#>  7 580c7905ac2f… 2026-05-01 Dyfed-Powy… Dyfed-Powys… dyfed-p…     -4.26     52.0
#>  8 f9ff02800dfa… 2026-05-01 Dyfed-Powy… Dyfed-Powys… dyfed-p…     -4.27     52.0
#>  9 af3d36909f9b… 2026-05-01 Dyfed-Powy… Dyfed-Powys… dyfed-p…     -4.07     52.1
#> 10 5c947f9fbb43… 2026-05-01 Dyfed-Powy… Dyfed-Powys… dyfed-p…     -4.07     52.1
#> # ℹ 2,862 more rows
#> # ℹ 11 more variables: location <chr>, lsoa_code <chr>, lsoa_name <chr>,
#> #   lsoa_vintage <chr>, crime_type <fct>, crime_type_raw <chr>, is_asb <lgl>,
#> #   last_outcome_category <chr>, context <chr>, archive <chr>, file <chr>
table(crime$crime_type)
#> 
#>        Anti-social behaviour                Bicycle theft 
#>                          317                           16 
#>                     Burglary    Criminal damage and arson 
#>                           99                          286 
#>                        Drugs                  Other crime 
#>                           77                           71 
#>                  Other theft        Possession of weapons 
#>                          170                           29 
#>                 Public order                      Robbery 
#>                          227                            8 
#>                  Shoplifting        Theft from the person 
#>                          169                           14 
#>                Vehicle crime Violence and sexual offences 
#>                           47                         1342 
#>  Public disorder and weapons 
#>                            0 
lamp_contract(crime)$coverage
#> # A tibble: 3 × 8
#>   force_id    month      file_type status    archive n_records n_versions
#>   <chr>       <date>     <chr>     <chr>     <chr>       <int>      <int>
#> 1 dyfed-powys 2026-05-01 street    submitted 2026-07       968          1
#> 2 dyfed-powys 2026-06-01 street    submitted 2026-07       925          1
#> 3 dyfed-powys 2026-07-01 street    submitted 2026-07       979          1
#> # ℹ 1 more variable: versions_differ <lgl>