How many police officers are there in the U.S.?
In 2023, there were 720,652 full-time law enforcement officers employed in the United States, an increase from 708,001 the previous year. Within the provided time period, the number of full-time law enforcement officers was lowest in 2013, with 626,942 officers.
Employment in law enforcement
According to the source, law enforcement officers are defined as those individuals who regularly carry a firearm and an official badge on their person, have full powers of arrest, and whose salaries are paid from federal funds set aside specifically for sworn law enforcement. Law enforcement, particularly when it comes to officers, is a male-dominated field. Law enforcement employees can either be officers or civilians, and federal law enforcement agencies cover a wide area of jurisdictions -- from the National Park Service to the FBI.
Police in the United States
The police in the United States have come under fire over the past few years for accusations of use of unnecessary force and for the number of people who are shot to death by police in the U.S. Police officers in the United States are regularly armed, and in comparison, 19 countries, including Iceland, New Zealand, and Ireland, do not regularly arm their police forces.
These data on 19th- and early 20th-century police department and arrest behavior were collected between 1975 and 1978 for a study of police and crime in the United States. Raw and aggregated time-series data are presented in Parts 1 and 3 on 23 American cities for most years during the period 1860-1920. The data were drawn from annual reports of police departments found in the Library of Congress or in newspapers and legislative reports located elsewhere. Variables in Part 1, for which the city is the unit of analysis, include arrests for drunkenness, conditional offenses and homicides, persons dismissed or held, police personnel, and population. Part 3 aggregates the data by year and reports some of these variables on a per capita basis, using a linear interpolation from the last decennial census to estimate population. Part 2 contains data for 267 United States cities for the period 1880-1890 and was generated from the 1880 federal census volume, REPORT ON THE DEFECTIVE, DEPENDENT, AND DELINQUENT CLASSES, published in 1888, and from the 1890 federal census volume, SOCIAL STATISTICS OF CITIES. Information includes police personnel and expenditures, arrests, persons held overnight, trains entering town, and population.
Law Enforcement Locations in the United States Any location where sworn officers of a law enforcement agency are regularly based or stationed. Law Enforcement agencies "are publicly funded and employ at least one full-time or part-time sworn officer with general arrest powers". This is the definition used by the US Department of Justice - Bureau of Justice Statistics (DOJ-BJS) for their Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey. Although LEMAS only includes non Federal Agencies, this dataset includes locations for federal, state, local, and special jurisdiction law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement agencies include, but are not limited to, municipal police, county sheriffs, state police, school police, park police, railroad police, federal law enforcement agencies, departments within non law enforcement federal agencies charged with law enforcement (e.g., US Postal Inspectors), and cross jurisdictional authorities (e.g., Port Authority Police). In general, the requirements and training for becoming a sworn law enforcement officer are set by each state. Law Enforcement agencies themselves are not chartered or licensed by their state. County, city, and other government authorities within each state are usually empowered by their state law to setup or disband Law Enforcement agencies. Generally, sworn Law Enforcement officers must report which agency they are employed by to the state. Although TGS's intention is to only include locations associated with agencies that meet the above definition, TGS has discovered a few locations that are associated with agencies that are not publicly funded. TGS deleted these locations as we became aware of them, but some may still exist in this dataset. Personal homes, administrative offices, and temporary locations are intended to be excluded from this dataset; however, some personal homes of constables are included due to the fact that many constables work out of their homes. This also applies to mounted police in New Mexico. TGS has made a concerted effort to include all local police; county sheriffs; state police and/or highway patrol; Bureau of Indian Affairs; Bureau of Land Management; Bureau of Reclamation; U.S. Park Police; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; U.S. Marshals Service; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; National Park Service; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the United States and its territories. This dataset is comprised completely of license free data. At the request of NGA, FBI entities are intended to be excluded from this dataset, but a few may be included. The HSIP Freedom Law Enforcement dataset and the HSIP Freedom Correctional Institutions dataset were merged into one working file. TGS processed as one file and then separated for delivery purposes. Please see the process description for the breakdown of how the records were merged. With the merge of the Law Enforcement and the Correctional Institutions datasets, the HSIP Themes and NAICS Codes & Descriptions were assigned based on the facility's main function which was determined by the entity's name, facility type, web research, and state supplied data. In instances where the entity's primary function is both law enforcement and corrections, the NAICS Codes and Descriptions are assigned based on the dataset in which the record is located (i.e., a facility that serves as both a Sheriff's Office and as a jail is designated as [NAICSDESCR]="SHERIFFS' OFFICES (EXCEPT COURT FUNCTIONS ONLY)" in the Law Enforcement layer and as [NAICSDESCR]="JAILS (EXCEPT PRIVATE OPERATION OF)" in the Correctional Institutions layer). Records with "-DOD" appended to the end of the [NAME] value are located on a military base, as defined by the Defense Installation Spatial Data Infrastructure (DISDI) military installations and military range boundaries. "#" and "*" characters were automatically removed from standard HSIP fields that TGS populated. Double spaces were replaced by single spaces in these same fields. At the request of NGA, text fields in this dataset have been set to all upper case to facilitate consistent database engine search results. At the request of NGA, all diacritics (e.g., the German umlaut or the Spanish tilde) have been replaced with their closest equivalent English character to facilitate use with database systems that may not support diacritics. The currentness of this dataset is indicated by the [CONTDATE] field. Based on the values in this field, the oldest record dates from 12/07/2004 and the newest record dates from 09/10/2009.Homeland Security Use Cases: Use cases describe how the data may be used and help to define and clarify requirements. 1. An assessment of whether or not the total police capability in a given area is adequate. 2. A list of resources to draw upon in surrounding areas when local resources have temporarily been overwhelmed by a disaster - route analysis can help to determine those entities who are able to respond the quickest. 3. A resource for emergency management planning purposes. 4. A resource for catastrophe response to aid in the retrieval of equipment by outside responders in order to deal with the disaster. 5. A resource for situational awareness planning and response for federal government events.
https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/38800/termshttps://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/38800/terms
The Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data, Police Employee Data, 2021 file contains monthly data on felonious or accidental killings and assaults upon United States law enforcement officers acting in the line of duty. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assembled the data and processed them from UCR Master Police Employee (LEOKA) data tapes. Each agency record in the file includes the following summary variables: state code, population group code, geographic division, Metropolitan Statistical Area code, and agency name. These variables afford considerable flexibility in creating subsets or aggregations of the data. Since 1930, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has compiled the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) to serve as a periodic nationwide assessment of reported crimes not available elsewhere in the criminal justice system. Each year, this information is reported in four types of files: (1) Offenses Known and Clearances by Arrest, (2) Property Stolen and Recovered, (3) Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), and (4) Police Employee (LEOKA) Data. The Police Employee (LEOKA) Data provide information about law enforcement officers killed or assaulted (hence the acronym, LEOKA) in the line of duty. The variables created from the LEOKA forms provide in-depth information on the circumstances surrounding killings or assaults, including type of call answered, type of weapon used, and type of patrol the officers were on.
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
This folder contains data behind the story Most Police Don’t Live In The Cities They Serve.
Includes the cities with the 75 largest police forces, with the exception of Honolulu for which data is not available. All calculations are based on data from the U.S. Census.
The Census Bureau numbers are potentially going to differ from other counts for three reasons:
How to read police-locals.csv
Header | Definition |
---|---|
city | U.S. city |
police_force_size | Number of police officers serving that city |
all | Percentage of the total police force that lives in the city |
white | Percentage of white (non-Hispanic) police officers who live in the city |
non-white | Percentage of non-white police officers who live in the city |
black | Percentage of black police officers who live in the city |
hispanic | Percentage of Hispanic police officers who live in the city |
asian | Percentage of Asian police officers who live in the city |
Note: When a cell contains **
it means that there are fewer than 100 police officers of that race serving that city.
This is a dataset from FiveThirtyEight hosted on their GitHub. Explore FiveThirtyEight data using Kaggle and all of the data sources available through the FiveThirtyEight organization page!
This dataset is maintained using GitHub's API and Kaggle's API.
This dataset is distributed under the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed expect for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) is further information is needed. This collection is composed of archived news articles and court records reporting (n=6,724) on the arrest(s) of law enforcement officers in the United States from 2005-2011. Police crimes are those crimes committed by sworn law enforcement officers given the general powers of arrest at the time the offense was committed. These crimes can occur while the officer is on or off duty and include offenses committed by state, county, municipal, tribal, or special law enforcement agencies.Three distinct but related research questions are addressed in this collection:What is the incidence and prevalence of police officers arrested across the United States? How do law enforcement agencies discipline officers who are arrested?To what degree do police crime arrests correlate with other forms of police misconduct?
When police punch, pepper spray or use other force against someone in New Jersey, they are required to fill out a form detailing what happened. NJ Advance Media filed 506 public records requests and received 72,607 forms covering 2012 through 2016. For more data collection details, see our Methodology here. Data cleaning details can be found here.
We then cleaned, analyzed and compiled the data by department to get a better look at what departments were using the most force, what type of force they were using, and who they were using it on. The result, our searchable database, can be found at NJ.com/force. But we wanted to make department-level results — our aggregate data — available in another way to the broader public.
For more details on individual columns, see the data dictionary for UOF_BY_DEPARTMENTS. We have also created sample SQL queries to make it easy for users to quickly find their town or county.
It's important to note that these forms were self-reported by police officers, sometimes filled out by hand, so even our data cleaning can't totally prevent inaccuracies from cropping up. We've also included comparisons to population data (from the Census) and arrest data (from the FBI Uniform Crime Report), to try to help give context to what you're seeing.
We have included individual incidents on each department page, but we are not publishing the form-level data freely to the public. Not only is that data extremely dirty and difficult to analyze — at least, it took us six months — but it contains private information about subjects of force, including minors and people with mental health issues. However, we are planning to make a version of that file available upon request in the future.
What are rows? What are incidents?
Every time any police officer uses force against a subject, they must fill out a form detailing what happened and what force they used. But sometimes multiple police officers used force against the same subject in the same incident. "Rows" are individual forms officers filled out, "incidents" are unique incidents based on the incident number and date.
What are the odds ratios, and how did you calculate them?
We wanted a simple way of showing readers the disparity between black and white subjects in a particular town. So we used an odds ratio, a statistical method often used in research to compare the odds of one thing happening to another. For population, the calculation was (Number of black subjects/Total black population of area)/(Number of white subjects/Total white population of area). For arrests, the calculation was (Number of black subjects/Total number of black arrests in area)/(Number of white subjects/Total number of white arrests in area). In addition, when we compared anything to arrests, we took out all incidents where the subject was an EDP (emotionally disturbed person).
What are the NYC/LA/Chicago warning systems?
Those three departments each look at use of force to flag officers if they show concerning patterns, as way to select those that could merit more training or other action by the department. We compared our data to those three systems to see how many officers would trigger the early warning systems for each. Here are the three systems:
- In New York City, officers are flagged for review if they use higher levels of force — including a baton, Taser or firearm, but not pepper spray — or if anyone was injured or hospitalized. We calculated this number by identifying every officer who met one or more of the criteria.
- In Los Angeles, officers are compared with one another based on 14 variables, including use of force. If an officer ranks significantly higher than peers for any of the variables — technically, 3 standards of deviation from the norm — supervisors are automatically notified. We calculated this number conservatively by using only use of force as a variable over the course of a calendar year.
- In Chicago, officers are flagged for review if force results in an injury or hospitalization, or if the officer uses any level of force above punches or kicks. We calculated this number by identifying every officer who met one or more of the criteria.
What are the different levels of force?
Each officer was required to include in the form what type of force they used against a subject. We cleaned and standardized the data to major categories, although officers could write-in a different type of force if they wanted to. Here are the major categories:
- Compliance hold: A compliance hold is a painful maneuver using pressure points to gain control over a suspect. It is the lowest level of force and the most commonly used. But it is often used in conjunction with other types of force.
- Takedown: This technique is used to bring a suspect to the ground and eventually onto their stomach to cuff them. It can be a leg sweep or a tackle.
- Hands/fist: Open hands or closed fist strikes/punches.
- Leg strikes: Leg strikes are any kick or knee used on a subject.
- Baton: Officers are trained to use a baton when punches or kicks are unsuccessful.
- Pepper spray: Police pepper spray, a mist derived from the resin of cayenne pepper, is considered “mechanical force” under state guidelines.
- Deadly force: The firing of an officer's service weapon, regardless of whether a subject was hit. “Warning shots” are prohibited, and officers are instructed not to shoot just to maim or subdue a suspect.
These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they there received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except of the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompany readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collections and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.The purpose of the study was to implement a "platform-based" methodology for collecting data about police organizations and the communities they serve with the goals of generating in-depth standardized information about police organizations, personnel and practices and to help move policing in the direction of evidence-based "learning-organizations" by providing judicious feedback to police agencies and policy makers. The research team conducted three web-based Law Enforcement Organizations (LEO) surveys of sworn and civilian law enforcement employees (LEO Survey A Data, n=22,765; LEO Survey B Data, n=15,825; and LEO Survey C Data, n=16,483). The sample was drawn from the 2007 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) database. Agencies with 100 to 3,000 sworn police personnel were eligible for participation. To collect data for the Police-Community Interaction (PCI) survey (PCI Data, n=16,659), each week department employees extracted names and addresses of persons who had recent contact with a police officer because of a reported crime incident, traffic accident or traffic stop. Typically, the surveys were completed within two to four weeks of the encounter.
This study surveyed police chiefs and data analysts in order to determine the use of data in police departments. The surveys were sent to 1,379 police agencies serving populations of at least 25,000. The survey sample for this study was selected from the 2000 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey. All police agencies serving populations of at least 25,000 were selected from the LEMAS database for inclusion. Separate surveys were sent for completion by police chiefs and data analysts. Surveys were used to gather information on data sharing and integration efforts to identify the needs and capacities for data usage in local law enforcement agencies. The police chief surveys focused on five main areas of interest: use of data, personnel response to data collection, the collection and reporting of incident-based data, sharing data, and the providing of statistics to the community and media. Like the police chief surveys, the data analyst surveys focused on five main areas of interest: use of data, agency structures and resources, data for strategies, data sharing and outside assistance, and incident-based data. The final total of police chief surveys included in the study is 790, while 752 data analyst responses are included.
Since 1930, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has compiled the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) to serve as a periodic nationwide assessment of reported crimes not available elsewhere in the criminal justice system. Each year, this information is reported in four types of files: (1) Offenses Known and Clearances by Arrest, (2) Property Stolen and Recovered, (3) Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), and (4) Police Employee (LEOKA) Data. The Police Employee (LEOKA) Data provide information about law enforcement officers killed or assaulted (hence the acronym, LEOKA) in the line of duty. The variables created from the LEOKA forms provide in-depth information on the circumstances surrounding killings or assaults, including type of call answered, type of weapon used, and type of patrol the officers were on.
Sadly, the trend of fatal police shootings in the United States seems to only be increasing, with a total 1,173 civilians having been shot, 248 of whom were Black, as of December 2024. In 2023, there were 1,164 fatal police shootings. Additionally, the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 6.1 fatal shootings per million of the population per year between 2015 and 2024. Police brutality in the U.S. In recent years, particularly since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, police brutality has become a hot button issue in the United States. The number of homicides committed by police in the United States is often compared to those in countries such as England, where the number is significantly lower. Black Lives Matter The Black Lives Matter Movement, formed in 2013, has been a vocal part of the movement against police brutality in the U.S. by organizing “die-ins”, marches, and demonstrations in response to the killings of black men and women by police. While Black Lives Matter has become a controversial movement within the U.S., it has brought more attention to the number and frequency of police shootings of civilians.
The rate of fatal police shootings in the United States shows large differences based on ethnicity. Among Black Americans, the rate of fatal police shootings between 2015 and December 2024 stood at 6.1 per million of the population per year, while for white Americans, the rate stood at 2.4 fatal police shootings per million of the population per year. Police brutality in the United States Police brutality is a major issue in the United States, but recently saw a spike in online awareness and protests following the murder of George Floyd, an African American who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Just a few months before, Breonna Taylor was fatally shot in her apartment when Louisville police officers forced entry into her apartment. Despite the repeated fatal police shootings across the country, police accountability has not been adequate according to many Americans. A majority of Black Americans thought that police officers were not held accountable for their misconduct, while less than half of White Americans thought the same. Political opinions Not only are there differences in opinion between ethnicities on police brutality, but there are also major differences between political parties. A majority of Democrats in the United States thought that police officers were not held accountable for their misconduct, while a majority of Republicans that they were held accountable. Despite opposing views on police accountability, both Democrats and Republicans agree that police should be required to be trained in nonviolent alternatives to deadly force.
Yearly average City, Transit, and Housing uniform headcount updated yearly with the Mayor's Message.
Comprehensive dataset of 19,858 Police departments in United States as of June, 2025. Includes verified contact information (email, phone), geocoded addresses, customer ratings, reviews, business categories, and operational details. Perfect for market research, lead generation, competitive analysis, and business intelligence. Download a complimentary sample to evaluate data quality and completeness.
Feature layer showing the locations of Sworn Law Enforcement Officer Locations in California.This is the definition used by the US Department of Justice - Bureau of Justice Statistics (DOJ-BJS) for their Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey. Although LEMAS only includes non Federal Agencies, this dataset includes locations for federal, state, local, and special jurisdiction law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement agencies include, but are not limited to, municipal police, county sheriffs, state police, school police, park police, railroad police, federal law enforcement agencies, departments within non law enforcement federal agencies charged with law enforcement (e.g., US Postal Inspectors), and cross jurisdictional authorities (e.g., Port Authority Police). In general, the requirements and training for becoming a sworn law enforcement officer are set by each state. Law Enforcement agencies themselves are not chartered or licensed by their state. County, city, and other government authorities within each state are usually empowered by their state law to setup or disband Law Enforcement agencies. Generally, sworn Law Enforcement officers must report which agency they are employed by to the state. Although TGS's intention is to only include locations associated with agencies that meet the above definition, TGS has discovered a few locations that are associated with agencies that are not publicly funded. TGS deleted these locations as we became aware of them, but some may still exist in this dataset. Personal homes, administrative offices, and temporary locations are intended to be excluded from this dataset; however, some personal homes of constables are included due to the fact that many constables work out of their homes. This also applies to mounted police in New Mexico. TGS has made a concerted effort to include all local police; county sheriffs; state police and/or highway patrol; Bureau of Indian Affairs; Bureau of Land Management; Bureau of Reclamation; U.S. Park Police; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; U.S. Marshals Service; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; National Park Service; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the United States and its territories. This dataset is comprised completely of license free data. At the request of NGA, FBI entities are intended to be excluded from this dataset, but a few may be included. The HSIP Freedom Law Enforcement dataset and the HSIP Freedom Correctional Institutions dataset were merged into one working file. TGS processed as one file and then separated for delivery purposes. Please see the process description for the breakdown of how the records were merged. With the merge of the Law Enforcement and the Correctional Institutions datasets, the HSIP Themes and NAICS Codes & Descriptions were assigned based on the facility's main function which was determined by the entity's name, facility type, web research, and state supplied data. In instances where the entity's primary function is both law enforcement and corrections, the NAICS Codes and Descriptions are assigned based on the dataset in which the record is located (i.e., a facility that serves as both a Sheriff's Office and as a jail is designated as [NAICSDESCR]="SHERIFFS' OFFICES (EXCEPT COURT FUNCTIONS ONLY)" in the Law Enforcement layer and as [NAICSDESCR]="JAILS (EXCEPT PRIVATE OPERATION OF)" in the Correctional Institutions layer). Records with "-DOD" appended to the end of the [NAME] value are located on a military base, as defined by the Defense Installation Spatial Data Infrastructure (DISDI) military installations and military range boundaries. "#" and "*" characters were automatically removed from standard HSIP fields that TGS populated. Double spaces were replaced by single spaces in these same fields. At the request of NGA, text fields in this dataset have been set to all upper case to facilitate consistent database engine search results. At the request of NGA, all diacritics (e.g., the German umlaut or the Spanish tilde) have been replaced with their closest equivalent English character to facilitate use with database systems that may not support diacritics. The currentness of this dataset is indicated by the [CONTDATE] field. Based on the values in this field, the oldest record dates from 12/07/2004 and the newest record dates from 09/10/2009.Use Cases: Use cases describe how the data may be used and help to define and clarify requirements.1. An assessment of whether or not the total police capability in a given area is adequate. 2. A list of resources to draw upon in surrounding areas when local resources have temporarily been overwhelmed by a disaster - route analysis can help to determine those entities who are able to respond the quickest. 3. A resource for emergency management planning purposes. 4. A resource for catastrophe response to aid in the retrieval of equipment by outside responders in order to deal with the disaster. 5. A resource for situational awareness planning and response for federal government events.
Law Enforcement Locations in Utah Any location where sworn officers of a law enforcement agency are regularly based or stationed. Law enforcement agencies "are publicly funded and employ at least one full-time or part-time sworn officer with general arrest powers". This is the definition used by the US Department of Justice - Bureau of Justice Statistics (DOJ-BJS) for their Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey. Although LEMAS only includes non Federal Agencies, this dataset includes locations for federal, state, local, and special jurisdiction law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement agencies include, but are not limited to, municipal police, county sheriffs, state police, school police, park police, railroad police, federal law enforcement agencies, departments within non law enforcement federal agencies charged with law enforcement (e.g., US Postal Inspectors), and cross jurisdictional authorities (e.g., Port Authority Police). In general, the requirements and training for becoming a sworn law enforcement officer are set by each state. Law Enforcement agencies themselves are not chartered or licensed by their state. County, city, and other government authorities within each state are usually empowered by their state law to setup or disband Law Enforcement agencies. Generally, sworn Law Enforcement officers must report which agency they are employed by to the state. Although TGS's intention is to only include locations associated with agencies that meet the above definition, TGS has discovered a few locations that are associated with agencies that are not publicly funded. TGS is deleting these locations as we become aware of them, but some probably still exist in this dataset. Personal homes, administrative offices and temporary locations are intended to be excluded from this dataset, but a few may be included. Personal homes of constables may exist due to fact that many constables work out of their home. FBI entites are intended to be excluded from this dataset, but a few may be included. Text fields in this dataset have been set to all upper case to facilitate consistent database engine search results. All diacritics (e.g., the German umlaut or the Spanish tilde) have been replaced with their closest equivalent English character to facilitate use with database systems that may not support diacritics. The currentness of this dataset is indicated by the [CONTDATE] attribute. Based upon this attribute, the oldest record dates from 2006/06/27 and the newest record dates from 2013/05/20
Last Update: March 6, 2014
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
Analysis of ‘Police Killings US’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://www.kaggle.com/azizozmen/police-killings-us on 13 February 2022.
--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---
"In 2015, The Washington Post began to log every fatal shooting by an on-duty police officer in the United States. In that time there have been more than 5,000 such shootings recorded by The Post. After Michael Brown, an unarmed Black man, was killed in 2014 by police in Ferguson, Mo., a Post investigation found that the FBI undercounted fatal police shootings by more than half. This is because reporting by police departments is voluntary and many departments fail to do so. The Washington Post’s data relies primarily on news accounts, social media postings, and police reports. Analysis of more than five years of data reveals that the number and circumstances of fatal shootings and the overall demographics of the victims have remained relatively constant..." SOURCE ==> Washington Post Article
For more information about this story
This dataset has been prepared by The Washington Post (they keep updating it on runtime) with every fatal shooting in the United States by a police officer in the line of duty since Jan. 1, 2015.
2016 PoliceKillingUS DATASET
2017 PoliceKillingUS DATASET
2018 PoliceKillingUS DATASET
2019 PoliceKillingUS DATASET
2020 PoliceKillingUS DATASET
Features at the Dataset:
The file fatal-police-shootings-data.csv contains data about each fatal shooting in CSV format. The file can be downloaded at this URL. Each row has the following variables:
The threat column and the fleeing column are not necessarily related. For example, there is an incident in which the suspect is fleeing and at the same time turns to fire at gun at the officer. Also, attacks represent a status immediately before fatal shots by police while fleeing could begin slightly earlier and involve a chase. - body_camera: News reports have indicated an officer was wearing a body camera and it may have recorded some portion of the incident.
--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---
Sparked by high-profile confrontations between police and citizens in Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere, many commentators have criticized the excessive militarization of law enforcement. We investigate whether surplus military-grade equipment acquired by local police departments from the Pentagon has an effect on crime rates. We use temporal variations in US military expenditure and between-counties variation in the odds of receiving a positive amount of military aid to identify the causal effect of militarized policing on crime. We find that (i) military aid reduces street-level crime; (ii) the program is cost-effective; and (iii) there is evidence in favor of a deterrence mechanism.
A list of all NYPD officers, as reported to CCRB by NYPD based on NYPD's roster, and a count of any complaints they have received since the year 2000.
The dataset is part of a database of all public police misconduct records the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) maintains on complaints against New York Police Department uniformed members of service received in CCRB's jurisdiction since the year 2000, when CCRB's database was first built. This data is published as four tables:
Civilian Complaint Review Board: Police Officers Civilian Complaint Review Board: Complaints Against Police Officers Civilian Complaint Review Board: Allegations Against Police Officers Civilian Complaint Review Board: Penalties
A single complaint can include multiple allegations, and those allegations may include multiple subject officers and multiple complainants.
Public records exclude complaints and allegations that were closed as Mediated, Mediation Attempted, Administrative Closure, Conciliated (for some complaints prior to the year 2000), or closed as Other Possible Misconduct Noted.
This database is inclusive of prior datasets held on Open Data (previously maintained as "Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) - Complaints Received," "Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) - Complaints Closed," and "Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) - Allegations Closed") but includes information and records made public by the June 2020 repeal of New York Civil Rights law 50-a, which precipitated a full revision of what CCRB data could be considered public.
List of NYPD members of service
How many police officers are there in the U.S.?
In 2023, there were 720,652 full-time law enforcement officers employed in the United States, an increase from 708,001 the previous year. Within the provided time period, the number of full-time law enforcement officers was lowest in 2013, with 626,942 officers.
Employment in law enforcement
According to the source, law enforcement officers are defined as those individuals who regularly carry a firearm and an official badge on their person, have full powers of arrest, and whose salaries are paid from federal funds set aside specifically for sworn law enforcement. Law enforcement, particularly when it comes to officers, is a male-dominated field. Law enforcement employees can either be officers or civilians, and federal law enforcement agencies cover a wide area of jurisdictions -- from the National Park Service to the FBI.
Police in the United States
The police in the United States have come under fire over the past few years for accusations of use of unnecessary force and for the number of people who are shot to death by police in the U.S. Police officers in the United States are regularly armed, and in comparison, 19 countries, including Iceland, New Zealand, and Ireland, do not regularly arm their police forces.