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.
In 2020, there were ****** local police departments in the United States, the most out of any type. Furthermore, there were ***** Sheriff's offices in that same year nationwide.
In 2023, 59.9 percent of full-time civilian law enforcement employees in the United States were female. Only 13.8 percent of full-time law enforcement officers were female, while 86.2 percent of law enforcement officers were male. The gender divide Law enforcement in the United States is an indisputably male-dominated profession, particularly in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). However, research has shown that female officers can have a positive impact on communities and the overall performance of a law enforcement department. For example, female officers are less likely to have to face allegations of excessive force and can reduce the use of force among other officers in the department. Law enforcement in the U.S. The number of law enforcement officers in the United States has fluctuated over the years and, and hit a low in 2013. Despite the violent crime rate in the U.S. being much lower than its high point in the 1990s, the majority of Americans report being dissatisfied with national crime control and reduction policies.
To ensure an accurate sampling frame for its Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey, the Bureau of Justice Statistics periodically sponsors a census of the nation's state and local law enforcement agencies. This census, known as the Directory Survey, gathers data on 49 primary state law enforcement agencies and all sheriffs' departments, local police departments, and special police agencies (state or local) that are publicly funded and employ at least one sworn officer with general arrest powers. The 1996 Directory Survey collected data on the number of sworn and nonsworn personnel employed by each agency, including both full-time and part-time employees. Within the full-time sworn category, data were collected from all agencies on the number who were uniformed officers with regularly assigned duties that included responding to calls for service. For agencies with at least 10 full-time sworn officers, the number whose primary duties were related to investigations, court operations, or jail operations was also obtained. This data collection, compiled in June 1996, represents the third such census, with the first occurring in 1986 (DIRECTORY OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES, 1986: [UNITED STATES] [ICPSR 8696]) and the second in 1992 (DIRECTORY OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES, 1992: [UNITED STATES] [ICPSR 2266]). Variables include personnel totals, type of government, type of agency, and whether the agency had the legal authority to hold a person beyond arraignment for 48 or more hours.
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.
In 2020, there was the full-time equivalent of ****** state and local police officers in the state of California. In that same year, there were ****** state and local police officers in the state of New York.
https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/36697/termshttps://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/36697/terms
In the past several years, BJS has made efforts to develop a national roster of publicly funded law enforcement agencies. The Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA) represents the core of the BJS's law enforcement statistics program, and is currently used as the primary universe for all BJS law enforcement collections. The CSLLEA was last conducted in 2014 but encountered data collection issues. Since the last law enforcement universe list was the 2008 CSLLEA, BJS decided further work was needed to have a reliable and complete roster of law enforcement agencies. Using the 2008 and 2014 CSLLEA universe as the base, the LEAR integrated multiple datasets in an effort to compile a complete list of active general purpose law enforcement agencies. The goal of the LEAR was to serve as the universe list for which the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) core and supplement samples could be pulled. The 2016 LEAR contains a census of 15,810 general purpose law enforcement agencies, including 12,695 local and county police departments, 3,066 sheriffs' offices and 49 primary state police departments. Staffing size from multiple datasets has also been merged into the LEAR file.
To ensure an accurate sampling frame for its Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey, the Bureau of Justice Statistics periodically sponsors a census of the nation's state and local law enforcement agencies. This census, known as the Directory Survey, includes all state and local law enforcement agencies that are publicly funded and employ at least one full-time or part-time sworn officer with general arrest powers. As in previous years, the 2000 Directory Survey collected data on the number of sworn and nonsworn personnel employed by each agency, including both full-time and part-time employees. The pay period that included June 30, 2000, was the reference date for all personnel data. A 97.4 percent response rate was obtained from the 17,784 state and local law enforcement agencies operating in the United States. This data collection contains June 2000 data from the fourth Directory Survey. Previous directory censuses were conducted in 1986 (DIRECTORY OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES, 1986: [UNITED STATES] [ICPSR 8696]), 1992 (DIRECTORY OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES, 1992: [UNITED STATES] [ICPSR 2266]), and 1996 (DIRECTORY OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES, 1996: [UNITED STATES] [ICPSR 2260]). Variables include personnel totals, type of government, type of agency, and whether the agency had the legal authority to hold a person beyond arraignment for 48 or more hours.
The purpose of this research was to develop an accurate description of the current involvement of law enforcement in schools. The researchers administered a school survey (Part 1) as well as a law enforcement survey (Part 2 and Part 3). The school survey was designed specifically for this research, but did incorporate items from previous surveys, particularly the School Survey on Crime and Safety and the National Assessment of School Resource Officer Programs Survey of School Principals. The school surveys were then sent out to a total of 3,156 school principals between January 2002 and May 2002. The researchers followed Dillman's mail survey design and received a total of 1,387 completed surveys. Surveys sent to the schools requested that each school identify their primary and secondary law enforcement providers. Surveys were then sent to those identified primary law enforcement agencies (Part 2) and secondary law enforcement agencies (Part 3) in August 2002. Part 2 and Part 3 each contain 3,156 cases which matches the original sample size of schools. For Part 2 and Part 3, a total of 1,508 law enforcement surveys were sent to both primary and secondary law enforcement agencies. The researchers received 1,060 completed surveys from the primary law enforcement agencies (Part 2) and 86 completed surveys from the secondary law enforcement agencies (Part 3). Part 1, School Survey Data, included a total of 309 variables pertaining to school characteristics, type of law enforcement relied on by the schools, school resource officers, frequency of public law enforcement activities, teaching activities of law enforcement officers, frequency of private security activities, safety plans and meetings with law enforcement, and crime/disorder in schools. Part 2, Primarily Relied Upon Law Enforcement Agency Survey Data, and Part 3, Secondarily Relied Upon Law Enforcement Agency Survey Data, each contain 161 variables relating to school resource officers, frequency of public law enforcement activities, teaching activities of law enforcement agencies, safety plans and meetings with schools, and crime/disorder in schools reported to police according to primary/secondary law enforcement.
This dataset lists law enforcement agencies and contains variables regarding employment categories such as total full-time, part-time, sworn-in, and other employees. It also contains FIPS codes and populations.
In 2023, the majority of law enforcement officers that were killed in the United States were white. That year, ** white law enforcement officers as well as **** Black officers were killed. Overall, a total of ** law enforcement officers were killed in the United States in that year.
The purpose of the study was to investigate how and why injuries occur to police and citizens during use of force events. The research team conducted a national survey (Part 1) of a stratified random sample of United States law enforcement agencies regarding the deployment of, policies for, and training with less lethal technologies. Finalized surveys were mailed in July 2006 to 950 law enforcement agencies, and a total of 518 law enforcement agencies provided information on less lethal force generally and on their deployment and policies regarding conducted energy devices (CEDs) in particular. A total of 292 variables are included in the National Use of Force Survey Data (Part 1) including items about weapons deployment, force policies, training, force reporting/review, force incidents and outcomes, and conducted energy devices (CEDs). Researchers also collected agency-supplied use of force data from law enforcement agencies in Richland County, South Carolina; Miami-Dade, Florida; and Seattle, Washington; to identify individual and situational predictors of injuries to officers and citizens during use of force events. The Richland County, South Carolina Data (Part 2) include 441 use-of-force reports from January 2005 through July 2006. Part 2 contains 17 variables including whether the officer or suspect was injured, 8 measures of officer force, 3 measures of suspect resistance, the number of witnesses and officers present at each incident, and the number of suspects that resisted or assaulted officers for each incident. The Miami-Dade County, Florida Data (Part 3) consist of 762 use-of-force incidents that occurred between January 2002 and May 2006. Part 3 contains 15 variables, including 4 measures of officer force, the most serious resistance on the part of the suspect, whether the officer or suspect was injured, whether the suspect was impaired by drugs or alcohol, the officer's length of service in years, and several demographic variables pertaining to the suspect and officer. The Seattle, Washington Data (Part 4) consist of 676 use-of-force incidents that occurred between December 1, 2005, as 15 variables, including 3 measures of officer force, whether the suspect or officer was injured, whether the suspect was impaired by drugs or alcohol, whether the suspect used, or threatened to use, physical force against the officer(s), and several demographic variables relating to the suspect and officer(s). The researchers obtained use of force survey data from several large departments representing different types of law enforcement agencies (municipal, county, sheriff's department) in different states. The research team combined use of force data from multiple agencies into a single dataset. This Multiagency Use of Force Data (Part 5) includes 24,928 use-of-force incidents obtained from 12 law enforcement agencies from 1998 through 2007. Part 5 consists a total of 21 variables, including the year the incident took place, demographic variables relating to the suspect, the type of force used by the officer, whether the suspect or officer was injured, and 5 measures of the department's policy regarding the use of CEDs and pepper spray. Lastly, longitudinal data were also collected for the Orlando, Florida and Austin, Texas police departments. The Orlando, Florida Longitudinal Data (Part 6) comprise 4,222 use-of-force incidents aggregated to 108 months -- a 9 year period from 1998 through 2006. Finally, the Austin, Texas Longitudinal Data (Part 7) include 6,596 force incidents aggregated over 60 months- a 5 year period from 2002 through 2006. Part 6 and Part 7 are comprised of seven variables documenting whether a Taser was implemented, the number of suspects and officers injured in a month, the number of force incidents per month, and the number of CEDs uses per month.
Agency: US Department of Homeland Security. Frequency of updates: irregular. Description: 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. 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. 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. This dataset is comprised completely of license free data. FBI entities are intended to be excluded from this dataset, but a few may be included. 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 fields that TGS populated. Double spaces were replaced by single spaces in these same fields. 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] field. Based on the values in this field, the oldest record dates from 04/05/2006 and the newest record dates from 10/16/2009 Purpose 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. Projection: WGS 1984.
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.
In 2023, there were ******* full-time law enforcement employees in California, the most out of any state in the United States.
In 1953, Congress enacted Public Law 280, transferring federal criminal jurisdiction in Indian country to the state government in six states, allowing other states to join in at a later date. This study was designed to gain a better understanding of law enforcement under Public Law 280. Specifically, amid federal concerns about rising crime rates in Indian country and rising victimization rates among Indians, the National Institute of Justice funded this study to advance understanding of this law and its impact, from the point of view of tribal members as well as state and local officials. The research team gathered data from 17 confidential reservation sites, which were selected to ensure a range of features such as region and whether the communities were in Public Law 280 jurisdictions under mandatory, optional, excluded, straggler, or retroceded status. Confidential interviews were conducted with a total of 354 reservation residents, law enforcement officials, and criminal justice personnel. To assess the quality or effectiveness of law enforcement and criminal justice systems under Public Law 280, the research team collected quantitative data pertaining to the responsiveness, availability, quality, and sensitivity of law enforcement, and personal knowledge of Public Law 280.
https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/36164/termshttps://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/36164/terms
The Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey collects data from a nationally representative sample of state and local law enforcement agencies in the United States. Although the data collection instrument (see page 150 of the codebook) uses the year 2012 for the title, most questions have a reference date of January 1, 2013. For this reason, the study title uses the year 2013. The 2013 LEMAS sample design called for the survey questionnaire to be sent to 3,336 general purpose state and local law enforcement agencies including 2,353 local police departments, 933 sheriffs' offices, and the 50 primary state law enforcement agencies. The design called for all agencies employing 100 or sworn personnel to be included with certainty (self-representing) and for smaller agencies to be sampled from strata base on number of officers employed. A total of 26 local police departments were determined to be out-of-scope for the survey because they were closed, outsourced, or operating on a part-time basis. A total of 38 sheriffs' offices were excluded from the survey because they had no primary law enforcement jurisdiction. The final mailout total of 3,272 agencies included 2,327 local police departments, 895 sheriffs' offices, and the 50 state agencies.
This study was undertaken to provide current information on work and family issues from the police officer's perspective, and to explore the existence and prevalence of work and family training and intervention programs offered nationally by law enforcement agencies. Three different surveys were employed to collect data for this study. First, a pilot study was conducted in which a questionnaire, designed to elicit information on work and family issues in law enforcement, was distributed to 1,800 law enforcement officers representing 21 municipal, suburban, and rural police agencies in western New York State (Part 1). Demographic information in this Work and Family Issues in Law Enforcement (WFILE) questionnaire included the age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, highest level of education, and number of years in law enforcement of each respondent. Respondents also provided information on which agency they were from, their job title, and the number of children and step-children they had. The remaining items on the WFILE questionnaire fell into one of the following categories: (1) work and family orientation, (2) work and family issues, (3) job's influence on spouse/significant other, (4) support by spouse/significant other, (5) influence of parental role on the job, (6) job's influence on relationship with children, (7) job's influence on relationships and friendships, (8) knowledge of programs to assist with work and family issues, (9) willingness to use programs to assist with work and family issues, (10) department's ability to assist officers with work and family issues, and (11) relationship with officer's partner. Second, a Police Officer Questionnaire (POQ) was developed based on the results obtained from the pilot study. The POQ was sent to over 4,400 officers in police agencies in three geographical locations: the Northeast (New York City, New York, and surrounding areas), the Midwest (Minneapolis, Minnesota, and surrounding areas), and the Southwest (Dallas, Texas, and surrounding areas) (Part 2). Respondents were asked questions measuring their health, exercise, alcohol and tobacco use, overall job stress, and the number of health-related stress symptoms experienced within the last month. Other questions from the POQ addressed issues of concern to the Police Research and Education Project -- a sister organization of the National Association of Police Organizations -- and its membership. These questions dealt with collective bargaining, the Law Enforcement Officer's Bill of Rights, residency requirements, and high-speed pursuit policies and procedures. Demographic variables included gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, highest level of education, and number of years employed in law enforcement. Third, to identify the extent and nature of services that law enforcement agencies provided for officers and their family members, an Agency Questionnaire (AQ) was developed (Part 3). The AQ survey was developed based on information collected from previous research efforts, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Part W-Family Support, subsection 2303 [b]), and from information gained from the POQ. Data collected from the AQ consisted of whether the agency had a mission statement, provided any type of mental health service, and had a formalized psychological services unit. Respondents also provided information on the number of sworn officers in their agency and the gender of the officers. The remaining questions requested information on service providers, types of services provided, agencies' obstacles to use of services, agencies' enhancement of services, and the organizational impact of the services.
This dataset provides the total number of law enforcement employees, the number of male officers, the number of female officers, the number of male civilian employees, and the number of female civilian employees listed alphabetically by state.
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.
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.