Methodology & sources
Datasets used
Criminal Justice Statistics quarterly: March 2026 — Outcomes by Offence data (csv)
Publisher: Ministry of Justice (HMCTS data) · Released 30 July 2026
Period used: Years ending March 2024, 2025 and 2026 (Apr 2023 – Mar 2026), England and Wales
Release page · Downloaded file
Publisher: Ministry of Justice (HMCTS data) · Released 30 July 2026
Period used: Years ending March 2024, 2025 and 2026 (Apr 2023 – Mar 2026), England and Wales
Release page · Downloaded file
Criminal court statistics quarterly: April to June 2026 — Transparency files (csv)
Publisher: Ministry of Justice (HMCTS data) · Released 24 September 2026
Period used: Q1 2024 – Q2 2026 (Jan 2024 – Jun 2026), England and Wales
Release page · Downloaded file
Publisher: Ministry of Justice (HMCTS data) · Released 24 September 2026
Period used: Q1 2024 – Q2 2026 (Jan 2024 – Jun 2026), England and Wales
Release page · Downloaded file
How figures are made
- Files are downloaded unchanged from the official publishers. Every figure is a sum or ratio of published counts. Nothing is estimated or modelled.
- Outcomes by offence: totals across all police force areas, sexes, ages and ethnicities. Years are MoJ “year ending March”. Custody rate = sentenced to immediate custody ÷ total sentenced. ACSL = total custodial months ÷ number of sentences flagged by MoJ for ACSL.
- Court caseloads: Crown Court figures use the “All offences” rows across all case types; magistrates' figures sum all case types including Single Justice Procedure. Open = cases outstanding at quarter end. Partial Q3 2026 magistrates' rows in the file are excluded.
- Check: Crown Court open cases Q2 2026 = 80,829 and magistrates' open cases = 380,230, matching published Tables C1 and M1.
- Corrections and takedown requests: email corrections@courtday.uk (see About).
- Prosecutions and convictions in a year are not the same defendants, so a conviction ratio is not a conviction rate. MoJ advises against deriving rates from this data. Court Day UK does not show a ratio where it is over 100% or where there were fewer than 50 prosecutions.
Court-level data (Find your court)
Court pages use files from the same Transparency_files.zip above:
cc_rdos (Crown Court receipts, disposals, open cases by court centre), mags_rdos (magistrates by local justice area), trials (effective, cracked, ineffective, vacated trials by court), cc_os_average (median age of open Crown Court cases), cc_timeliness, cc_plea_rates and mags_timeliness (by local criminal justice area). Period Jan 2024 – Jun 2026. Courts with region “Unknown” or no open-case figure for June 2026 are not given pages. Ineffective trial rate = ineffective ÷ (effective + cracked + ineffective).Police, prisons and reoffending
{JSRC}Youth justice and recorded crime in Scotland
{DSRC}Waiting times, CPS Areas, postcode lookup and explainers
{GMETH}Scotland and Northern Ireland
Scotland: SCTS Courts and Tribunals Data Scotland: Criminal, August 2026 (published 17 Sep 2026; monthly data by sheriff court and sheriffdom, financial years 2024/25 and 2025/26, trials scheduled at end of August 2024 and 2026) and Scottish Government, Criminal Proceedings in Scotland 2023-24 (published 9 Dec 2025; national convictions only). Northern Ireland: NICTS Judicial Statistics 2025, Tables 6 (Crown Court) and 8 (Magistrates' Courts), calendar years 2024 and 2025, Northern Ireland as a whole. Measures differ between the three jurisdictions, so they are not ranked against each other.
Licence
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Court Day UK is independent and not endorsed by the Ministry of Justice or HMCTS.
