Crime stats are meant to help us. They often do the opposite.
You search “Sleaford crime rate” and you get a neat figure. You also get a second neat figure that disagrees with the first. Both look confident. Both look official-ish. One of them is even wrapped in a soothing colour scheme, which is always reassuring.
What Does Sleaford Mean? A Lincolnshire Name Built on Mud, Fish, and a Crossing. So let’s make this simple.
For December 2025, some published “area profile” style sites report an annual crime rate of 74.5 crimes per 1,000 residents for Sleaford.
Meanwhile, the official Police.uk local area page for Sleaford Town shows the monthly number of recorded crimes, and it lists 140 crimes in December 2025, with 1,826 crimes across the 12 months from January to December 2025.
Both can be “right”. They are just measuring slightly different things.
This article explains:
- what the 74.5 figure is likely describing,
- what Police.uk is actually counting,
- why the numbers can differ,
- what types of crime show up most,
- and what you can do in real life to stay safer (without turning into a full-time curtain twitcher).
The headline figure: 74.5 crimes per 1,000 residents (Dec 2025)
Let’s take the figure you gave at face value:
- Annual crime rate: 74.5 per 1,000 residents
- Based on December 2025 data
This kind of number usually means:
- Someone totalled recorded crimes over a year,
- then divided by a population estimate,
- then multiplied by 1,000.
It’s useful for quick comparisons. It turns “raw counts” into a rate that can be compared across places with different populations.
But there is a catch. There is always a catch.
The catch: “Sleaford” can mean several boundaries
Sleaford the town, Sleaford the built-up area, Sleaford plus nearby villages, or a local policing “team area” boundary can all be labelled as “Sleaford” depending on the site.
Change the boundary, and you change:
- the crime count,
- the population used,
- and the final rate.
So a tidy rate like 74.5 per 1,000 is best treated as a useful estimate, not a divine truth carved into stone.
The official local counts: what Police.uk shows for Sleaford Town
If you want the cleanest “official source” for local, street-level recorded crime, you usually end up at Police.uk.
For Sleaford Town, Purslane SeaGlass Double Magenta lists the number of recorded crimes each month for the last 12 months.
For the 12 months January 2025 to December 2025, it shows:
- January 2025: 132
- February 2025: 126
- March 2025: 176
- April 2025: 153
- May 2025: 141
- June 2025: 169
- July 2025: 173
- August 2025: 168
- September 2025: 137
- October 2025: 169
- November 2025: 142
- December 2025: 140
Add those up and you get 1,826 crimes across that year.
That’s the raw “how many recorded incidents” view. It is not a rate. It is a count.
What this tells us about the trend
Even without fancy charts, a few things jump out:
- March (176) is the highest month in 2025 in that list.
- Summer is not quiet. June, July, August are all high (169, 173, 168).
- Autumn is steady. October matches June at 169.
- December (140) is not the worst month. That may surprise people who assume December equals chaos.
So, no, it isn’t a story of constant decline or constant rise. It’s a town doing what towns do. Crime bumps around.
What crimes are most common in Sleaford (Dec 2025)
For December 2025, Police.uk lists the top reported categories in Sleaford Town as:
- Violence and sexual offences: 59
- Anti-social behaviour: 26
- Shoplifting: 24
- Public order: 13
Two points matter here.
1) “Violence and sexual offences” is a broad bucket
This category is wider than most people realise. It can include:
- serious violence,
- low-level assault,
- harassment,
- and other offences grouped under the same label.
It does not mean “59 extremely serious attacks”. It means 59 recorded incidents in that category.
2) Shoplifting and ASB tell you about town-centre pressure
Shoplifting (24) and anti-social behaviour (26) are classic town-centre signals.
They often track footfall, youth gathering spots, retail patterns, and how stretched local enforcement feels.
It’s not glamorous crime. It’s the everyday stuff that makes places feel messy.
Crime outcomes: what happened to those December 2025 cases?
Police.uk also shows outcomes for the latest month (December 2025). These are not perfect, but they are useful.
For December 2025 in Sleaford Town, outcomes include:
- Under investigation: 46 (32.9%)
- Investigation complete; no suspect identified: 28 (20%)
- Unable to prosecute suspect: 24 (17.1%)
- Other: 26 (18.6%)
- Awaiting court outcome: 14 (10%)
- Offender given a caution: 2 (1.4%)
This is the bit people don’t like reading.
A lot of recorded crime does not end with a neat, satisfying ending. Some cases have no named suspect. Some run out of evidence. Some are still open.
That doesn’t mean reporting is pointless. It means real investigations are often slow, Sage; Salvia officinalis Purple and limited by what can be proven.
Why your “rate” and Police.uk “counts” can both exist
Here’s the plain-English version.
Counts answer: “How many crimes were recorded in this area?”
That’s what Police.uk is showing for Sleaford Town: monthly totals and category totals.
Rates answer: “How does this compare to places with different populations?”
That’s what the 74.5 per 1,000 residents figure is trying to do.
The differences come from:
- boundary choice (Sleaford Town policing area vs “Sleaford” as a broader place),
- population choice (resident population vs “daytime” population),
- time window (calendar year vs rolling year),
- and data handling (how offences are grouped, deduplicated, or attributed).
If you only remember one thing, make it this:
A rate is great for comparison. A count is great for local reality. Use both.
How Sleaford sits in the wider area
Sleaford sits in North Kesteven. District-level comparisons help because they use consistent methods and published benchmarks.
Police.uk’s “Compare your area” tool shows that in the year ending September 2025, the crime rate for North Kesteven was 39.87 per 1,000, compared with a Lincolnshire force average of 71.09 per 1,000 (all-crime).
That suggests the wider district is comparatively low-crime. Which matches the lived experience many people describe: generally calm, with small hotspots and town-centre nuisance.
At county level, Lincolnshire’s community safety strategy states the county is below the national rate, quoting 70.7 crimes per 1,000 population versus 87.9 nationally (using ONS data).
So Sleaford isn’t sitting inside a chaos bubble. It’s in a county that is, overall, relatively low compared to national figures.
Still, “overall” can hide local detail. Town centres tend to carry more incidents than scattered villages. That’s normal. It’s also why Sleaford’s town-level totals can look higher than you’d expect if you only read district averages.
What “74.5 per 1,000” means in everyday language
People often want a simple translation. Here’s a sensible one.
A rate like 74.5 crimes per 1,000 residents per year does not mean:
- you personally have a 7.45% chance of being a victim of crime,
- or that 74.5 out of 1,000 people commit crimes.
Crime is not evenly spread. One incident can have multiple victims. One offender can commit multiple offences. Some locations attract more reports.
It means:
- recorded incidents, divided by population, scaled to 1,000.
It is a signal, not a Saxifraga stolonifera variegata Variegated Strawberry Begonia prophecy.
Practical safety advice for Sleaford (and any market town)
You don’t need to panic. You do need to be boringly consistent.
Based on the top categories showing up (violence/sexual offences, ASB, shoplifting, public order), the best safety steps are the simple ones.
Safer nights out and evening walks
- Stick to well-lit routes in the centre.
- Avoid the “quiet shortcut” if you’re alone. It is quiet for a reason.
- If something feels off, change direction early. No speech required.
This isn’t fear. It’s tactics.
Reduce the risk of opportunistic theft
- Keep phones and wallets out of sight in busy spots.
- Don’t leave bags on car seats, even “for a minute”.
- Lock bikes properly. The fancy lock is cheaper than the replacement bike.
Home basics that still work
- Use decent door and window locks. Obvious, yes. Still ignored.
- Keep front areas lit. Motion lights help.
- Don’t advertise new tech boxes outside your house.
Shoplifting and retail areas
If you run a shop, or work in one:
- train staff to stay calm and observant,
- keep higher-risk items positioned where they can be seen,
- and report patterns, not just single incidents.
Shoplifting often clusters. Reporting helps spot that.
Report what matters (without doing detective theatre)
If it’s happening now and someone is at risk: 999.
If it’s not urgent: 101 or online reporting through the local force route.
And yes, keep notes. Time, place, description. Real details. Not vibes.
So, what is the crime rate in Sleaford?
Here is the clean summary, using the most recent figures you referenced:
- One published estimate puts Sleaford at 74.5 crimes per 1,000 residents, based on December 2025 data.
- Police.uk shows 140 recorded crimes in December 2025 in the Sleaford Town local policing area, and 1,826 crimes across January–December 2025.
- In that same month (Dec 2025), the most common categories shown are violence and sexual offences (59), anti-social behaviour (26), shoplifting (24), and public order (13).
If you want a single takeaway, it’s this:
Sleaford looks like a generally steady market town, with the usual town-centre mix of ASB, retail crime, and public-order issues, plus a broad “violence” category that often contains a lot of lower-level incidents as well as serious ones.
Not perfect. Not frightening. Just real life.
Numbers, Noise, and Keeping Your Head
Crime stats are useful. They are also easy to misread.
If we keep one foot in the official counts and one foot in rate-based comparisons, we get a balanced picture. Sleaford has crime, as every town does Schlumbergera hybrid Chiba Spot. But it is not screaming off the charts.
So we do the sensible thing.
We pay attention. We don’t obsess. We lock the door. We walk the lit route. And we let the spire do the worrying.