Official Statistics

User guide to Police use of force statistics, England and Wales

Published 16 December 2021

Applies to England and Wales

1. Introduction

This user guide accompanies the fourth publication of Home Office Police use of force statistics, which includes information on incidents in which police officers used force on individuals. The data were collected for the first time in 2018 through the Home Office Annual Data Requirement (ADR).

Official statistics

Police use of force statistics are classified as Official Statistics. They were classified as Experimental Statistics for the first three years of their publication (year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020) as the processes around data collection and the quality of the data were developed. The Experimental Statistics label has been removed from the year ending March 2021 statistics to indicate that:

• the statistical methods involved in analysing the data are now well established
• coverage has improved
• feedback indicates that the statistics are useful and credible
• the development phase has ended
• quality limitations are known, and the impact of these are understood

The data quality section provides more detail on current limitations and data quality issues.

2. Feedback and enquiries

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our documents. If you find any problems relating to accessibility, or have any feedback, contact us at the Licensing and Public Order Analysis Unit: [email protected]

3. Data collection and preparation

3.1 Purpose of the collection

The Government has committed to improving the transparency and accountability of police use of force. In 2014, the then Home Secretary asked former Chief Constable David Shaw (Chief Constable for West Mercia until July 2016) to lead a review into what data should be recorded and published.

The use of force review recommended that a range of core data should be recorded every time the police deploy a tactic categorised as a use of force. Since April 2017, all police forces in the UK have been required to record this data.

The purpose of the use of force data collection is to provide the public with information on the different types of force used and other related data. These data also inform the work of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and College of Policing to enhance tactics, training, and equipment to improve the safety of officers and those who they come into contact with.

Police forces in England and Wales collect data on the use of force and submit a subset of the data to the Home Office through the ADR. The ADR is a list of all requests for data made to police forces in England and Wales under the Home Secretary’s statutory powers.

The collection of data through the ADR encourages consistent reporting between police forces, together with an expectation of high quality data, and is signed off by individual Chief Constables. Furthermore, collecting data on the use of force through the ADR underlines the importance of these data to Ministers, the Home Office and to the public.

One ‘use of force incident’ refers to one officer’s use of force involving one person. A report could include multiple tactics, reasons for using force, impact factors, locations, and outcomes, although it should only relate to one officer and one person. The ‘number of incidents’ reported in the publication is therefore equal to the number of use of force reports that were completed by police officers, not the number of unique events or people involved in incidents.

3.2 Data coverage

Data are collected, under the terms of the ADR, from the 43 Home Office police forces in England and Wales.

The statistics relate to ‘use of force incidents’. A use of force incident is defined as a situation in which a police officer uses any of the following force tactics on a single individual:

Restraint tactics

• handcuffing (compliant or non-compliant)
• limb and or body restraints
• ground restraint

Unarmed skills

• this includes distraction strikes with hands and feet; and pressure point and joint locks to help restrain individuals

Use of other equipment

• baton (including where it was drawn but not used)
• irritant spray (including where it was drawn but not used)
• spit and bite guard
• shield (e.g. individual struck or pushed with a shield)

Less lethal weapons

• Conducted Energy Device (CED, e.g. TASER®), including where it was used with being discharged (drive stun, fired, angled drive-stun) or used without being discharged (drawn, aimed, red-dot, arced)
• Attenuating Energy Projectile (AEP) (including whether it was drawn but not used, or used)

Firearms

• this refers to the use of conventional firearms, including where the firearm was aimed or fired

Other

• use of dogs (including where a dog was deployed but did not come into contact with (i.e. bite) the individual)
• other and or improvised

Not all police forces’ recording systems are able to record the repeated use of the same tactic within an incident. In the Police use of force statistics, the tactics used in an incident are only counted once, even if they were reported multiple times within the same incident. If multiple tactics are used by one officer on one person within the same incident, the report would count as one incident.

Officers must complete a ‘use of force report’ each time they use force tactics on an individual. The use of force report also allows for other information to be recorded. As such, the statistics in the publication cover various aspects of use of force incidents:

• the number of recorded incidents where force was used, and the type of force (tactic) used
• the reason for using force, and other factors that impacted on the incident
• details of the person’s age, gender, ethnicity, and health condition (as perceived by the reporting officer)
• injury information for both officers and the person involved, including injury level
• incident details such as location type and outcome

The publication does not include force used in designated public order events, where officers may use force over a period of time against a person(s) not subsequently apprehended. In these situations, it is not feasible for officers to provide the same level of detail as for individual use of force incidents.

Police forces may collect additional information at a local level, such as further details or including incidents at designated public order events. For more information on individual police forces’ use of force data, see the related statistics and reports section of this user guide.

Tactical communication refers to an officer speaking to an individual, which includes the officer issuing orders such as asking them to move or stop or change their actions. While tactical communications is not a use of force per se, it was recorded from the year ending March 2018 to the year ending March 2020, only when a use of force tactic had also been used by the officer as part of the same incident; for example, tactical communication followed by the use of a baton, to develop a better understanding of how it is used alongside other tactics in conflict management and resolution. From the year ending March 2021, tactical communication is no longer required to be reported via the ADR.

3.3 Quality assurance

These statistics are compiled by Home Office statisticians who have worked closely with the NPCC and police forces to design and implement quality assurance checks. There is ongoing communication with police forces during the data collection and confirmation exercises, and engagement via the NPCC.

Quality assurance checks follow the QAAD guidance (Quality Assurance of Administrative Data) and include:

• ensuring the data provided is complete (or as close as possible, given the recording capacity of the submitting police force)
• querying missing or contradictory data (e.g. records where someone has been reported as ‘not injured’, but descriptions of the person’s injury have subsequently been provided), and working with police forces to correct the data where needed
• variance checks on data where comparable data over time is available i.e. comparing the figures for the current year to the last collected year of CED data, and querying substantial changes

The recording of police use of force incidents is the responsibility of each police force. As such, individual police forces may subject their use of force data to various quality checks prior to submitting the data to the Home Office.

4. Data quality

The year ending March 2021 statistical publication is the fourth in the Home Office ‘Police use of force statistics, England and Wales’ collection, and covers the fourth year in which the recording of police use of force is a national requirement in England and Wales.

From 2021, the statistics are designated as Official Statistics after a development period of three years. The quality of the data has improved each year, and whilst some quality issues remain, these are known and explained within this document and the publication. Statisticians in the Home Office continue to work with police forces and the NPCC to make continuous improvements to the quality of the data (see Improvements to data quality for more information).

For the year ending March 2021 publication, all 43 police forces submitted a data return. Although national guidance on the recording of police use of force has been developed by the NPCC and made available to all police forces, the actual recording of the data is the responsibility of each individual police force. As such, forces use their own recording systems and conduct their own quality assurance processes, so the quality of data may differ across the national dataset.

Home Office statisticians’ preparatory and quality assurance exercises have highlighted some issues with the collection which limit how the data may be used or interpreted. The following section details the known issues with different aspects of the data collection.

4.1 Data quality recording practices

Some incidents contained missing data. In addition, some forces did not break down tactics into the type of use (e.g. whether a baton was drawn or used). Home Office statisticians continue to work with forces to improve their level of compliance with the ADR.

There is no central system or software for recording use of force; police forces’ recording systems differ in many ways, leading to differences in the data collected and the quality of the data. The ways in which the recording systems vary, include:

(i) the exact questions (or wording thereof) posed to officers about the incident, and the manner in which subsequent answers can be entered (such as free text responses, and selecting from drop-down menus or pick lists)

(ii) the level of data validation; for example, some systems may not prevent an officer from entering contradictory or incorrect information when recording their use of force, or may not direct an officer to input details where a response should be mandatory

(iii) incidents may involve multiple locations, outcomes, impact factors and reasons for using force, but some recording systems do not allow for the recording of multiple responses for these questions

(iv) a certain tactic may be used repeatedly in an incident; some recording systems allow for the recording of repeated tactics, whereas other systems do not

There will be differences within and across police forces in reporting practices. It is the responsibility of individual police forces to provide training and guidance for officers in the reporting of use of force. Although Home Office statisticians worked with the NPCC to develop uniform reporting guidance for officers, the use of force reporting will remain reliant, to an extent, on the judgement and interpretation of the individual reporting officer

4.2 Data quality – how a use of force incident is defined

Police officers must record the details of any incident where they deployed force tactics through a ‘use of force report’. Where a situation involved more than one individual or officer using force, each officer who used force must complete one use of force report, per individual, detailing their ‘own’ use of force.

One ‘use of force incident’ refers to one officer’s use of force involving one person. A report could include multiple tactics, reasons for using force, impact factors, locations, and outcomes, although it should only relate to one officer and one person. The ‘number of incidents’ reported in the publication is therefore equal to the number of use of force reports that were completed by police officers, not the number of unique events or people involved in incidents.

The number of incidents reported does not tell us how many individual people experienced police use of force. In a situation where three police officers restrain an individual on the ground, and one of those officers then handcuffs the individual, there would be three separate use of force reports submitted (one by each officer). These reports would be counted in the publication as three ‘incidents’. All three reports would include the details of the incident (location, for example) and the persons’ details (as perceived by the reporting officer). The reports would also include the tactics the reporting officer used (i.e. two reports would list ground restraint only, and one report would list both ground restraint and handcuffing). See also the following example:

Example of recording more than one use of force in an incident

In the following situation, both officers would submit use of force reports relating to the same person at the same event, so the person would appear twice in the dataset (thus accounting for two ‘use of force incidents’).

Example: A person is in possession of a weapon and is physically threatening two officers. Both officers draw their CEDs and aim the CEDs at the person. The person continues to threaten the officers, so the first officer uses the laser sight on the device to place a red dot on the person. The person becomes compliant and neither officer discharges their CED. The person places the weapon on the ground as instructed and is then handcuffed by the second officer.

The first officer would complete a use of force report, listing ‘CED - Red dot’ as the tactic used, and ‘Possession of a weapon’ as an impact factor. The second officer would also complete a use of force report, listing ‘CED – Aimed’ and ‘Compliant handcuffing’ as tactics, and ‘Possession of a weapon’ as an impact factor.

As a report could include multiple tactics, reasons for using force, impact factors, locations, and outcomes, it is not possible to determine from such reports, for example, the location in which each tactic was used (where multiple tactics and locations are reported), or which tactic (or combination thereof) may have caused a person’s injuries. Data are collected in this way to ensure the reporting process isn’t excessively bureaucratic or burdensome to police forces – for example, through the completion of multiple use of force reports.

Some use of force situations will be more complicated than others, and span different amounts of time – it is at the discretion of the reporting officer to decide whether they report the events as one incident or multiple.

Not all police forces record the repeated use of the same tactic within an incident. As such, in the publication, the tactics used in an incident are only counted once, even if they were reported multiple times within the same incident.

4.3 Data quality – CED

In the year ending March 2021, all 43 police forces collected and submitted data on CED use to the Home Office for the full 12-month reporting period. However, two police forces (Warwickshire and West Mercia) submitted separate datasets detailing their CED use. As such, the data presented in the publication on the number of uses of CED in the year ending March 2021 was not linked to other incident information (e.g. person details) for these forces.

4.4 Data quality – reasons, outcomes, impact factors

Incidents can involve multiple tactics, reasons for using force, impact factors and outcomes, and as such should not be interpreted as being directly linked or causal. For instance, in an incident where restraint tactics were used and the outcome ‘hospitalisation’ was recorded, it does not follow that hospitalisation was caused by the use of restraint tactics, as other tactics may have been recorded in that incident which caused or contributed to the outcome. This also applies to reasons for using force and impact factors. See the following example:

Example of recording multiple uses of force and reasons for using force

In an incident where ‘Spit and bite guard’ is a tactic used, and ‘Prevent escape’ is a reason for using force, this does not mean the officer used a spit or bite guard to prevent the person from escaping, as other tactics and or reasons may have been reported also.

Example: An officer uses handcuffs on a non-compliant person, to prevent them from escaping. The person continues to behave aggressively and starts spitting at the officer. The officer places a spit and bite guard on the person to protect themselves from any further spitting or biting.

The officer would complete a use of force report, listing ‘Non-compliant handcuffing’ and ‘Spit and bite guard’ as tactics, and ‘Prevent escape’ and ‘Protect self’ as the reasons for using force.

Not all police recording systems allow officers to report multiple reasons, impact factors, and outcomes for an incident.

Impact factors may not apply in all use of force incidents. However, some police forces’ recording systems include impact factors as a mandatory field. As such, impact factors may be over-reported for some forces.

‘Other’ outcomes can include instances where a person is cautioned, charged or restrained until they no longer pose a threat before being released, searched or de-arrested following further information, or transported home or into medical care.

4.5 Data quality – injuries and fatalities

Injuries to the person, or the outcomes ‘hospitalisation’ or ‘fatality’ may be reported even when these outcomes were not caused by the officers’ use of force. This could be because the cause or level of the injury, or cause of the outcome is unclear, e.g. in incidents where multiple officers were involved, or injuries were caused by other parties. This may account for many instances in the data where the outcome ‘fatality’ or ‘hospitalisation’ is recorded but the injury section of the report does not show the person sustaining any injuries from the officers’ use of force. This also means that the number of incidents with the outcome ‘fatality’ does not reflect fatalities caused by police officers.

Data on injuries to the person comes from two different parts of the use of force report – injuries (where the officer records whether the person was injured, and to what level, as a result of use of force) and outcomes (where the officer reports whether hospitalisation or a fatality occurred).

Injury information may be contradictory because accurately determining the severity of an injury may be difficult for reasons such as the severity being affected by a pre-existing injury or medical issue, or it being unclear from a visual and or verbal assessment as to the severity of an injury.

Data on staff injuries include contradictory information; for example, the officer did not report sustaining an injury but injury details were provided (e.g. the officer’s injury was recorded as ‘minor’).

The number of injury and fatality incidents do not necessarily equate to the number of individual people. This may also apply to incidents where officers reported the outcome as ‘hospitalised’ because multiple officers might report the same hospitalisation.

It should also be noted that officers are encouraged, for accuracy, to submit a use of force report as soon as possible after the incident. Therefore, any fatalities which occur after the ‘incident’, but are as a result of the force used during the incident, may not be recorded.

Although all police forces do keep records of all fatalities, a fatality caused by an officers’ use of force may not have been recorded specifically on the police forces’ use of force recording system. Where a fatality occurred and a use of force report was submitted, the officer involved may not have completed the report themselves (possibly due to welfare concerns i.e. they were involved in a traumatic incident). As such, these incidents often have little other information, since these reports were likely submitted by a third-party who was not present at the incident and could not provide more than the key information.

Under the Police Reform Act 2002, police forces in England and Wales have a statutory duty to refer all incidents involving a death or serious injury to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) for consideration. The IOPC will determine whether it is necessary to investigate and who should carry out the investigation. Some matters are investigated by police forces and some are investigated by the IOPC. The IOPC National Statistics report on deaths during or following police contact provides more comprehensive information.

4.6 Data quality – location

A use of force incident may involve multiple locations (e.g. an incident could begin in a dwelling, but finish on the street outside if the person attempted to escape or, where custody block is given as a location, it does not necessarily follow that all tactics used in the incident were used within the custody block; they may have been used before the person was placed in custody). However, some police forces’ recording systems do not allow for multiple locations to be recorded for one incident. This may mean that officers may choose to record, for example, only the first location (where the incident began), or the primary location (where the majority of the incident took place). In instances where an officer uses force on the same individual in multiple locations, and most likely across an extended period of time, the officer may view parts of the event as separate incidents and record the details in separate reports which, in turn, would count as multiple incidents in these statistics.

4.7 Data quality – physical and mental health conditions

Use of force recording guidance provided by the NPCC states that mental and physical health conditions include, but are not limited to: sensory impairments; fluctuating or recurring impairments (e.g. epilepsy); developmental impairments (e.g. autistic spectrum disorders, or dyspraxia); learning disabilities; mental health conditions; and mental illness.

4.8 Uses of the statistics

These statistics should be used to provide a national picture of police use of force in England and Wales. Whilst the coverage is considered to be good, it is likely that incidents will continue to increase year-on-year as recording methods and practices continue to improve. The data provide information on the personal characteristics of the person involved, the type of force used, the reason police used force and other information about the incident

The data currently cannot be used for the following purposes:

• to find out the number of unique events in which force was used – a single situation involving one officer and two people would result in two use of force reports being submitted (by the same officer), which means the incident would appear twice in the dataset
• to find out the number of unique individuals upon which force was used – a single incident involving one person and two officers, both of whom use force, would result in two use of force reports being submitted (one per officer), which means the person would appear twice in the dataset
• to ascertain details of a specific person and or event – all details on the person involved (age, gender, ethnicity, and mental or physical health conditions) are reported as ‘perceived by the officer’, it is possible that multiple officers reporting the details of the same individual may report different person details, due to their differing perceptions or judgement
• to compare CED use from April 2017 onwards to data on CED use recorded prior to April 2017 – the transition of recording CED use from one system to another (i.e. a wider use of force recording system) means that the data is not completely comparable
• to determine direct links between tactics and the reasons, locations, outcomes and or injures resulting from the use of that tactic; one use of force report can include multiple responses for each of these questions

Please note that this list is not exhaustive.

4.9 Improvements to data quality

The experimental statistics label on police use of force’ statistics was removed in the year ending March 2021 to indicate that:

• the statistical methods involved in analysing the data are now well established
• coverage has improved
• feedback indicates that the statistics are useful and credible
• the development phase has ended
• quality limitations are known, and the impact is understood

Statisticians in the Home Office continue to work with individual police forces and the NPCC to improve the quality of these statistics as the collection continues. This will include, for example, consulting individual police forces to address areas of their data collection to rectify errors or missing data. Home Office statisticians also support the NPCC in exercises such as reviewing and updating the national guidance on the police use of force data collection. This is to ensure information is being recorded in a uniform manner across and within police forces.

As the collection continues, Home Office statisticians will refine and add to the existing quality assurance checks. For example, since the second year of the collection onwards, year-on-year variance checks are conducted on all data.

Improving the quality of the data and ensuring information is correctly recorded should allow further investigation of future years’ data, as well as the potential to publish force level data in future. It may also be possible, for example, to review the order in which tactics were used, repeated use of tactics, and comparisons to existing data sources (e.g. demographics, crime statistic, and use of other police powers such as stop and search).

5. Methodology

5.1 Rounding

Data in ‘Police use of force statistics, England and Wales’ are provided unrounded, to promote transparency and allows users to examine the data in detail. However, please note that the figures are subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system, and, given the data quality issues detailed in the previous section, are not necessarily accurate to the last digit. Caution should be exercised when using these figures.

The rounding conventions used in the publication, unless otherwise stated, are as follows:

Figure	Rounding convention
Percentages greater than 1%	Rounded to the nearest percent e.g. 1.43% = 1%
Percentages less than 1%	Rounded to the nearest significant figure e.g. 0.43% = 0.4%, and 0.043% = 0.04%

Where data are rounded, they may not sum to the totals shown, or, in the case of percentages, to 100%, because they have been rounded independently.

5.2 Revisions

The data in the ‘Police use of force statistics, England and Wales’ collection may be revised in future years. It is standard practice across all Home Office statistical publications to incorporate revisions to previous years’ data in the latest publication. Corrections and revisions follow the Home Office statement of compliance with the code of practice for statistics - revisions and corrections policy.

6. Tactics glossary

This section lists all the tactics that are collected in ‘Police use of force statistics, England and Wales’. To ensure all use of force is captured, it includes a category of ‘Other or improvised’.

Further information relating to the tactics and equipment can be found through the College of Policing Authorised Professional Practice website

Attenuating energy projectile (AEP)

An AEP is a soft nosed impact projectile fired from a single shot launcher. AEP is a form of less lethal weapon only available for use by specially trained officers, to give them (including those armed with conventional firearms) an additional means of dealing with threats of serious violence. It delivers an impact that is not intended to cause serious or life-threatening injury, but is of sufficient force to dissuade or prevent a violent or potentially violent person from their intended course of action, thereby reducing the threat. Police officers must record both when an AEP is aimed (even if not subsequently fired), and when fired.

Baton

A baton is a static or expandable stick. Batons can be used by appropriately trained officers to protect themselves or others, to demonstrate that force is about to be used (or may be used), and to facilitate dispersal and or arrest. Frontline officers routinely carry a baton, and must record both when a baton is drawn (even if not subsequently used), and when used.

Conducted energy device (CED)

A CED (i.e. a TASER® X26 or TASER® X2) is a less lethal weapon system authorised for use by specially trained officers only. This is one of a number of tactical options available when dealing with an incident with the potential for conflict. When fired, it is designed to temporarily incapacitate a person through the delivery of an electrical current which temporarily interferes with the body’s neuromuscular system.

The different possible uses of CEDs are as follows:

Non-discharge

• drawn - drawing of the device in circumstances where any person could reasonably perceive the action to be a use of force
• aimed - deliberate aiming of the device at a targeted person
• red-dot - the device is deliberately aimed and then partially activated so that a red laser dot is placed onto the person. The device is not discharged
• arced - sparking of the device without aiming or firing it

Discharge

• drive-stun - the device is held against the person’s body and the trigger is pulled with no probes being fired; contact with the person completes the electrical circuit which causes pain but does not deliver an incapacitating effect
• fired - the device is fired with a live cartridge installed; when the trigger is pulled, the probes are fired towards the person with the intention of completing an electrical circuit and delivering an incapacitating effect
• angled drive-stun - the officer fires the device with a live cartridge installed; if one of the probes misses the person, or if the probes land too close together, the officer then holds the device against the person’s body in a different area to the probe(s), in order to complete the electrical circuit and deliver an incapacitating effect

These statistics present the ‘highest’ use of CED from each incident. For example, if a CED is drawn, aimed, red-dotted, and then fired, this use will appear under ‘Fired’ only.

The approved CEDs for use by officers in England and Wales over the year ending March 2021 data collection period were the TASER® X26 and TASER® X2, manufactured by Axon Enterprise.

Dog deployment

Police officers may use specially trained dogs in certain situations, for example to pursue a suspect who is attempting to evade officers. Police officers must record when a dog is deployed, as well as if the dog comes in to physical contact with (i.e. bites) an individual.

Firearms

The use of firearms by specially trained armed officers can sometimes be the most appropriate way of dealing with a violent situation. An officer carrying a firearm, or the presence of an armed officer, does not in itself constitute a use of force. The ‘use’ of a firearm does not necessarily mean the firearm was discharged (fired); the act of an officer drawing or deliberately pointing the firearm at another person may de-escalate a situation, meaning it is not necessary for the officer to fire the weapon. From the year ending March 2021 police forces began to provide data on whether the firearm was aimed or fired.

Ground restraint

This refers to when a police officer restrains someone on the ground. This does not include other tactics used to restrain individuals (not on the ground), which should be recorded in these statistics under ‘Unarmed skills’ if no specific restraint equipment was used. If an officer restrained an individual on the ground and then used specific limb and or body restraint equipment, then ‘limb and or body restraints’ would also be reported as a tactic for that incident.

Handcuffing (compliant and non-compliant)

Frontline officers routinely carry handcuffs. Officers must record whether the handcuffing of an individual was compliant (i.e. the individual does not resist and follows requests) or non-compliant.

Irritant spray (CS and PAVA)

There are two different types of sensory irritant spray currently in use by police forces in England and Wales: CS and PAVA. Both types can be drawn and or used (sprayed) during an incident. Frontline police officers routinely carry an irritant spray and must record both when an irritant spray is drawn (even if not subsequently used), and when used.

Limb and or body restraints

This refers to the use of specialist equipment to reduce the movement of arms and legs. This tactic does not cover when a police officer restrains someone without using equipment (which may be recorded in these statistics as ‘Unarmed skills’ or ‘Ground restraint’, depending on how the individual was restrained).

Other and or improvised

When an officer used tactics which are not otherwise listed, they record the tactic as ‘Other and or improvised’. These tactics may include the use of horses or vehicles, for example.

Shield

A shield may be used by an officer to protect themselves and others, and potentially to strike an individual.

Spit and bite guard

A spit and bite guard may be used by an officer to provide protection from spitting and reduce the worst effects of biting, as well as reducing the need for the officer to resort to other, potentially more injurious, forms of physical restraint.

Unarmed skills

This tactic refers to physical contact, which can include: pushing; pulling; the use of pressure points; and knee, foot or hand strikes. This does not include police officers restraining someone (which is recorded as ‘Ground restraint’ or ‘Limb and or body restraints’).

7. Related statistics and reports

Forthcoming publications of ‘Police use of force statistics, England and Wales’ will be pre-announced on the Research and statistics page.

7.1 Police force publications

Police forces are encouraged to publish their own use of force data on their police force websites. These local publications may include information beyond what is included in the ADR and may not be comparable between all forces. Data quality processes used to produce the data published in the Police Use of Force publication may mean that there are some differences between locally published police force data and the Home Office statistical publication.

7.2 International comparisons

New Zealand publish tactical options research reports.

The United States of America do not have a national mandatory recording system, but select reports and reviews are available through the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Canada have federal and provincial policing regulations which require reporting on use of force incidents, but reporting is not consistent across the country. Further information can be found in their discussion of the collection and analysis of data on the use of force research report.

7.3 Data for police use of CED prior to year ending March 2018

Statistics on police use of CED (i.e. TASER®) were previously collected on a calendar year basis by the Home Office until 2016 (inclusive). These statistics, for the years 2009 to 2016, can be found in the Police use of TASER® series. These statistics do not include the use of TASER® X2 as the X2 model was not used in operational policing in England and Wales until after April 2017.

From April 2017, CED data has been collected on a financial year basis (April to March), for inclusion in the police use of force statistical collection. To bridge the gap between the 2016 collection and the 2017-18 collection, the Home Office collected police use of CED data for January to March 2017, and included it in table 14 for ‘Police use of force statistics, England and Wales, April 2017 to March 2018’. Revisions to the 2016 CED data can be found in table 15 for ‘Police use of force statistics, England and Wales, April 2017 to March 2018’.

Comparisons between historical CED figures to the data on police use of CED from April 2017 onwards is possible but may not represent full CED use. For more information, see the data quality section of this user guide.

7.4 Further statistics on police use of firearms

The Home Office separately publishes annual figures for each police force in England and Wales on firearms use, including:

• the number of firearms operations
• the number of armed officers
• the number of incidents where police firearms were discharged

Official Statistics on police use of firearms can be found on GOV.UK.

7.5 Statistics on the number of police officers assaulted

This collection includes figures on officer assaults, which includes whether the officer was injured as a result of an assault by the person involved in the incident.

Other statistics on police officer assaults are available as part of the police recorded crime series, which are published quarterly in Crime in England and Wales, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). These include assaults on officers (both with and without injury) that are recorded as crimes. As these statistics include assaults where there was no use of force by the police, they are not comparable with the statistics in the use of force publication.

7.6 HMICFRS PEEL: Police legitimacy report

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) publishes legitimacy reports on their inspections of police forces, focusing on whether forces treat people with fairness and respect, and ensure their workforces act ethically and lawfully. The PEEL legitimacy report was published in December 2017 contains a national overview on police use of force. The latest annual assessment of policing in England and Wales, State of Policing was published in 2020. More recent force level reports on legitimacy, including police use of force, were published in late 2020 and early 2021.