Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) 2025 technical report - Community safety domain
Outlines important technical information for the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) results report.
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In this page
The purpose of this domain is to measure deprivation relating to living in a safe community. It covers actual experience of crime and fire, as well as perceptions of safety whilst out and about in the local area. The domain has a relative weight of 5% in the overall index.
Indicators
Violence with injury
Type of indicator
Rate per 100 at risk population.
Numerator
Number of police recorded incidents in all sub-categories of ‘violence with injury’, plus all categories of ‘homicide’.
Denominator
Total resident population plus an estimate of the non-resident workplace population.
Source and time period
Police Recorded Crime collected by the Home Office; six years of financial year data from April 2018 to March 2024.
Total resident population (ONS), mid-year estimates 2018 to 2022.
Non-resident population: for the two ‘pre-pandemic’ financial years of 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020, the non-resident workplace population was taken from the 2011 Census; for the two ‘pandemic’ financial years of 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022, the non-resident workplace population was taken from the 2021 Census; and for the two ‘post-pandemic’ financial years of 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024, the non-resident workplace population was constructed as the average of the 2011 and 2021 Census values.
Additional notes
A full list of offence codes included in the indicator is provided in annex 8.1.
Comparability with WIMD 2019
Not comparable. This is a new indicator and one of four which replace the violence indicator from WIMD 2019.
Violence without injury
Type of indicator
Rate per 100 at risk population.
Numerator
Number of police recorded incidents in all sub-categories of ‘violence without injury’.
Denominator
Total resident population plus an estimate of the non-resident workplace population.
Source and time period
Police Recorded Crime collected by the Home Office; six years of financial year data from April 2018 to March 2024.
Total resident population, (ONS), mid-year estimates 2018 to 2022.
Non-resident population: for the two ‘pre-pandemic’ financial years of 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020, the non-resident workplace population was taken from the 2011 Census; for the two ‘pandemic’ financial years of 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022, the non-resident workplace population was taken from the 2021 Census; and for the two ‘post-pandemic’ financial years of 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024, the non-resident workplace population was constructed as the average of the 2011 and 2021 Census values.
Additional notes
A full list of offence codes included in the indicator is provided in annex 8.1.
Comparability with WIMD 2019
Not comparable. This is a new indicator and one of four which replace the violence indicator in WIMD 2019.
Stalking and harassment
Type of indicator
Rate per 100 at risk population.
Numerator
Number of police recorded incidents in all sub-categories of ‘stalking and harassment’.
Denominator
Total resident population plus an estimate of the non-resident workplace population.
Source and time period
Police Recorded Crime collected by the Home Office; six years of financial year data from April 2018 to March 2024.
Total resident population, (ONS), mid-year estimates 2018 to 2022.
Non-resident population: For the two ‘pre-pandemic’ financial years of 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020, the non-resident workplace population was taken from the 2011 Census; for the two ‘pandemic’ financial years of 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022, the non-resident workplace population was taken from the 2021 Census; and for the two ‘post-pandemic’ financial years of 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024, the non-resident workplace population was constructed as the average of the 2011 and 2021 Census values.
Additional notes
A full list of offence codes included in the indicator is provided in annex 8.1.
Comparability with WIMD 2019
Not comparable. This is a new indicator and one of four which replace the violence indicator in WIMD 2019.
Public order offences
Type of indicator
Rate per 100 at risk population.
Numerator
Number of police recorded incidents in all sub-categories of ‘public order’ and ‘possession of weapon offences’.
Denominator
Total resident population plus an estimate of the non-resident workplace population.
Source and time period
Police Recorded Crime collected by the Home Office; six years of financial year data from April 2018 to March 2024.
Total resident population, (ONS), mid-year estimates 2018 to 2022.
Non-resident population: for the two ‘pre-pandemic’ financial years of 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020, the non-resident workplace population was taken from the 2011 Census; for the two ‘pandemic’ financial years of 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022, the non-resident workplace population was taken from the 2021 Census; and for the two ‘post-pandemic’ financial years of 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024, the non-resident workplace population was constructed as the average of the 2011 and 2021 Census values.
Additional notes
A full list of offence codes included in the indicator is provided in annex 8.1.
Comparability with WIMD 2019
Not comparable. This is a new indicator and one of four which replace the violence indicator in WIMD 2019.
Burglary
Type of indicator
Rate per 100 at risk properties.
Numerator
Number of police recorded incidents in all sub-categories of ‘burglary’.
Denominator
Residential dwellings at LSOA level from the 2021 Census plus non-residential properties at LSOA level from Ordnance Survey’s Address Base.
Source and time period
Police Recorded Crime data collected by the Home Office; six years of financial year data from April 2018 to March 2024.
Residential dwellings from the 2021 Census plus non-domestic properties from Ordnance Survey’s AddressBase Plus.
Additional notes
A full list of offence codes included in the indicator is provided in annex 8.1.
Comparability with WIMD 2019
Broadly comparable.
Theft
Type of indicator
Rate per 100 at risk population.
Numerator
Number of police recorded incidents in all sub-categories of ‘theft’ and ‘robbery’, except ‘shoplifting’.
Denominator
Total resident population plus an estimate of the non-resident workplace population.
Source and time period
Police Recorded Crime collected by the Home Office; six years of financial year data from April 2018 to March 2024.
Total resident population, (ONS), mid-year estimates 2018 to 2022.
Non-resident population: for the two ‘pre-pandemic’ financial years of 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020, the non-resident workplace population was taken from the 2011 Census; for the two ‘pandemic’ financial years of 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022, the non-resident workplace population was taken from the 2021 Census; and for the two ‘post-pandemic’ financial years of 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024, the non-resident workplace population was constructed as the average of the 2011 and 2021 Census values.
Additional notes
A full list of offence codes included in the indicator is provided in annex 8.1.
Comparability with WIMD 2019
Not comparable, there is likely to be a noticeable impact in urban areas with large numbers of those classed as ‘non-resident workplace population’ being included in the denominator for the first time, making these areas relatively less deprived. Consequently more rural areas (which will see little change in denominator) may move up the deprivation ranks as a result of the urban areas moving down.
Criminal damage
Type of indicator
Rate per 100 at risk population.
Numerator
Number of police recorded incidents all sub-categories of ‘criminal damage’ and ‘arson’.
Denominator
Total resident population plus an estimate of the non-resident workplace population.
Source and time period
Police Recorded Crime collected by the Home Office; six years of financial year data from April 2018 to March 2024.
Total resident population, (ONS), mid-year estimates 2018 to 2022.
Non-resident population: for the two ‘pre-pandemic’ financial years of 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020, the non-resident workplace population was taken from the 2011 Census; for the two ‘pandemic’ financial years of 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022, the non-resident workplace population was taken from the 2021 Census; and for the two ‘post-pandemic’ financial years of 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024, the non-resident workplace population was constructed as the average of the 2011 and 2021 Census values.
Additional notes
A full list of offence codes included in the indicator is provided in annex 8.1.
Comparability with WIMD 2019
Not comparable, there is likely to be a noticeable impact in urban areas with large numbers of those classed as ‘non-resident workplace population’ being included in the denominator for the first time, making these areas relatively less deprived. Consequently more rural areas (which will see little change in denominator) may move up the deprivation ranks as a result of the urban areas moving down.
Anti-social behaviour
Type of indicator
Rate per 100 at risk population.
Numerator
Number of incidents in all sub-categories of anti-social behaviour (ASB) that are reported to the police and are recorded as police incidents, which consists of incidents of ‘personal’, ‘environmental’ and ‘nuisance’ anti-social behaviour.
Denominator
Total resident population plus an estimate of the non-resident workplace population.
Source and time period
National Police Chiefs Council, Welsh police forces; two years of financial year data from April 2022 to March 2024.
Total resident population, (ONS), mid-year estimates 2018 to 2022.
Non-resident workplace component constructed as the average of the 2011 and 2021 Census values.
Additional notes
Incidents of ASB were provided for two financial years, April 2022 to March 2023 and April 2023 to March 2024. Although data for ASB were also reviewed for the April 2021 to March 2022 financial year, data for April 2021 to March 2022 were rejected due to concerns about geographical inconsistency of policing practices and recording practices relating to restriction ‘breaches’ during the pandemic period. To avoid introducing geographical biases, ASB data were therefore only included for the post-pandemic period.
A full list of offence codes included in the indicator is provided in annex 8.1.
Comparability with WIMD 2019
Not comparable, there is likely to be a noticeable impact in urban areas with large numbers of those classed as ‘non-resident workplace population’ being included in the denominator for the first time, making these areas relatively less deprived. Consequently more rural areas (which will see little change in denominator) may move up the deprivation ranks as a result of the urban areas moving down.
Fire incidents
Type of indicator
Rate per 100 at risk population.
Numerator
Number of fires attended by the fire and rescue services in Wales.
Denominator
Total resident population excluding prison population.
Source and time period
Home Office’s Incident Recording System; three years of financial year data April 2021 to March 2024.
Total resident population (ONS), mid-year estimates 2021 to 2022.
Prison population, Ministry of Justice.
Additional notes
This indicator captures actual experiences of fire. Incidents of all primary, secondary and chimney fires were collected as counts by LSOA.
Incidents requiring call out of fire and rescue services are related to deprivation and more likely within disadvantaged groups.
Primary fires comprise all fires in buildings, vehicles and outdoor structures or any fire involving casualties, rescues, or fires attended by five or more appliances.
Secondary fires are the majority of outdoor fires including grassland and refuse fires unless they involve casualties or rescues, property loss or five or more appliances attend.
Chimney fires are reportable fires in occupied buildings where the fire was confined within the chimney structure and did not involve casualties or rescues or was attended by 5 or more appliances.
Comparability with WIMD 2019
Broadly comparable.
Domain construction
There are nine indicators in the community safety domain, weighted as follows. Factor analysis was used to calculate the indicator weights.
- 22% violence with injury
- 22% public order offences
- 18% criminal damage
- 13% violence without injury
- 8% stalking and harassment
- 4% theft
- 3% burglary
- 8% anti-social behaviour
- 2% fire incidents
The domain has a relative weight of 5% in the overall index.
Changes since WIMD 2019
There have been several methodological changes to the community safety domain between WIMD 2019 and WIMD 2025.
The community safety domain now consists of 9 indicators, increased from 6 in WIMD 2019 (which were: violence, burglary, theft, criminal damage anti-social behaviour and fire incidents). For WIMD 2025 the violence indicator has been split into 3 separate violence-related indicators and a further indicator of public order and possession of weapons offences. These violence indicators better reflect the higher volume of violent crime relative to the other categories at national and sub-national levels.
The domain now contains a more comprehensive suite of notifiable offences: whereas the WIMD 2019 violence and theft indicators were composed of selected subsets of overall violence and theft-related notifiable offences, the WIMD 2025 indicators are based on the full set of notifiable offence categories (with the exception of the exclusion of shoplifting from the theft indicator).
The data period for the 7 indicators based on recorded crime have been extended from 2 years to 6. This extended time series increases the robustness of the data by reducing the effects of small number volatility that can be observed year-on-year in LSOA crime statistics, to better reflect underlying risk of victimisation.
The data period for fire incidents has been extended from 2 years to 3 years. Numbers of fire incidents can be volatile and are often linked to weather conditions. Extending to a 3-year period means areas which are vulnerable to fires outdoors are more likely to be captured in the data.
The denominators for 6 of the 7 crime indicators and the anti-social behaviour indicator now incorporate a calculation for the ‘non-resident workplace population’ to produce a derived estimate of ‘at-risk population’. This was deemed a better denominator than simply using resident population as it aims to account for the larger population at risk of victimisation in areas such as town and city centres (reflecting, for instance, the night-time economy and associated risk factors for victimisation).
Prison populations are now included in this denominator, as concentrations of violent crime were found at prison locations, which suggests that the prison populations should be retained in the denominator as prisoners are at risk of victimisation.
Additional information
Methodology for police recorded data in this domain
Data on recorded crimes and ASB were collected and processed by deprivation.org on our behalf, using a method aligned with the English indices of deprivation 2025. Further details on the methodology can be found in the English indices of deprivation 2025 technical report (MHCLG).
The domain uses geocoded microdata on police recorded crime and ASB incidents, sourced from the Home Office Data Hub, Police.uk raw data, and bespoke police force extracts. Unlike anonymised public data, these datasets include full location details, enabling precise mapping. Due to sensitivity, all data processing occurred in secure police environments under National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) agreements.
Individual crime and ASB records were aggregated to LSOAs using a bespoke mapping tool. Crimes within 10 metres of boundaries were apportioned across adjacent LSOAs, replacing the previous 100m buffer used in 2019 to reflect improved geocoding accuracy.
Quality assurance included checks against aggregate police statistics and removal of anomalies, such as records outside force boundaries. Counts were constrained to Police Force Area totals to address unmapped records and avoid distortions from crimes geocoded to police premises.
Annex 8.1: categories of recorded crime and incidents of anti-social behaviour
Violence with injury
The WIMD 2025 ‘violence with injury’ indicator includes all Home Office sub-categories of homicide and violence with injury. All codes are available for financial years 2018 to 2019, to 2023 to 2024.
| Offence code | Offence name |
|---|---|
| 1 | Murder |
| 4.1 | Manslaughter |
| 4.1 | Corporate manslaughter |
| 4.2 | Infanticide |
| 2 | Attempted murder |
| 4.3 | Intentional destruction of viable unborn child |
| 5D | Assault with intent to cause serious harm |
| 5E | Endangering life |
| 4.7 | Causing or allowing death or serious physical harm of child or vulnerable person |
| 8N | Assault with injury |
| 8P | Racially or religiously aggravated assault with injury |
| 8S | Assault with injury on a constable |
| 8T | Assault with injury on an emergency worker (other than constable) |
Violence without injury
The WIMD 2025 ‘violence without injury’ indicator includes all Home Office sub-categories of violence without injury. All codes are available for financial years 2018 to 2019, to 2023 to 2024.
| Offence code | Offence name |
|---|---|
| 3A | Conspiracy to murder |
| 3B | Threats to kill |
| 11A | Cruelty to children/young persons |
| 13 | Child abduction |
| 14 | Procuring illegal abortion |
| 36 | Kidnapping |
| 104 | Assault without injury on a constable |
| 105A | Assault without Injury |
| 105B | Racially or religiously aggravated assault without injury |
| 106 | Modern Slavery |
Stalking and harassment
The WIMD 2025 ‘stalking and harassment’ indicator includes all Home Office sub-categories of stalking and harassment. All codes are available for financial years 2018 to 2019, to 2023 to 2024.
| Offence code | Offence name |
|---|---|
| 8L | Harassment |
| 8M | Racially or religiously aggravated harassment |
| 8Q | Stalking |
| 8R | Malicious communication |
| 8U | Controlling or Coercive behaviour |
Burglary
The WIMD 2025 ‘burglary’ indicator includes all Home Office sub-categories of burglary.
| Offence code | Offence name | Applicable years (financial years) |
|---|---|---|
| 28E | Burglary - Residential | 2018-19 to 2022-23 |
| 28F | Attempted burglary - Residential | 2018-19 to 2022-23 |
| 28G | Distraction burglary - Residential | 2018-19 to 2022-23 |
| 28H | Attempted distraction burglary - Residential | 2018-19 to 2022-23 |
| 28I | Residential burglary of a home | 2023-24 |
| 28J | Attempted residential burglary of a home | 2023-24 |
| 28K | Distraction burglary - residential (home) | 2023-24 |
| 28L | Attempted distraction burglary - residential (home) | 2023-24 |
| 28M | Residential burglary of unconnected building | 2023-24 |
| 28N | Attempted residential burglary of unconnected building | 2023-24 |
| 28O | Distraction burglary - residential (unconnected building) | 2023-24 |
| 28P | Attempted distraction burglary - residential (unconnected building) | 2023-24 |
| 29A | Aggravated burglary -Residential | 2018-19 to 2022-23 |
| 29B | Aggravated burglary - residential (home) | 2023-24 |
| 29C | Aggravated burglary - residential (unconnected building) | 2023-24 |
| 30C | Burglary - business and community | 2018-19 to 2023-24 |
| 30D | Attempted burglary - business and community | 2018-19 to 2023-24 |
| 31A | Aggravated burglary - business and community | 2018-19 to 2023-24 |
Theft
The WIMD 2025 ‘theft’ indicator includes all Home Office sub-categories of robbery and theft, except shoplifting. All codes are available for financial years 2018 to 2019, to 2023 to 2024.
| Offence code | Offence name |
|---|---|
| 34A | Robbery of business property |
| 34B | Robbery of personal property |
| 37.2 | Aggravated vehicle taking |
| 45 | Theft from a vehicle |
| 48 | Theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle |
| 126 | Vehicle interference |
| 39 | Theft from the person |
| 44 | Theft or unauthorised taking of a pedal cycle |
| 35 | Blackmail |
| 40 | Theft in a dwelling other than from an automatic machine or meter |
| 41 | Theft by an employee |
| 42 | Theft of mail |
| 43 | Dishonest use of electricity |
| 47 | Theft from automatic machine or meter |
| 49 | Other theft |
| 49A | Making off without payment |
Criminal damage
The WIMD 2025 ‘criminal damage’ indicator includes all Home Office sub-categories of criminal damage and arson. All codes are available for financial years 2018 to 2019, to 2023 to 2024.
| Offence code | Offence name |
|---|---|
| 56A | Arson endangering life |
| 56B | Arson not endangering life |
| 58A | Criminal damage to a dwelling |
| 58B | Criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling |
| 58C | Criminal damage to a vehicle |
| 58D | Other criminal damage |
| 58J | Racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage |
Public order and possession of weapons
The WIMD 2025 ‘public order and possession of weapons’ indicator includes all Home Office sub-categories of public order and possession of weapons offences. All codes are available for financial years 2018 to 2019, to 2023 to 2024.
| Offence code | Offence name |
|---|---|
| 9A | Public fear, alarm or distress |
| 9B | Racially or religiously aggravated public fear, alarm or distress |
| 62A | Violent disorder |
| 66 | Other offences against the State or public order |
| 10A | Possession of firearms with intent |
| 10B | Possession of firearms offences |
| 10C | Possession of other weapons |
| 10D | Possession of article with blade or point |
| 81 | Other firearms offences |
| 90 | Other knives offences |
Anti-social behaviour
The WIMD 2025 ‘anti-social behaviour’ indicator includes all Home Office sub-categories of anti-social behaviour. All categories are available for financial years 2022 to 2023, and 2023 to 2024.
Home Office offence flags used for the ‘anti-social behaviour’ indicator
- Personal
- Environmental
- Nuisance