What we can tell you · Available
How often do police use force, and against people of which ethnicity?
Available An official publication answers the question directly. Where it is not yet on this site, the entry says so.
Why
The Home Office "Police use of force statistics, England and Wales: April 2024 to March 2025" (second edition, published 4 June 2026) publishes use-of-force reports by ethnicity of the subject (self-defined where known, otherwise perceived) for 44 forces, with rates per 1,000 population by ethnicity for England and Wales, for England and Wales excluding the Metropolitan Police, and for the Metropolitan Police. The unit is a report, not a person: several reports can relate to one incident or one individual.
What is known
What is not known
- Person-level counts (reports only; 39% of reports were of sufficient quality for person-level estimation)
- Comparable force-to-force rates (recording completeness varies by force)
- The publication is not yet a registered source on this site
Who holds the data
- Home Office
- Police forces in England and Wales
Would a Freedom of Information request help?
Unlikely. The data tables are published annually by force.
Privacy and disclosure restrictions
Official statistics since March 2021, some measures "in development". Ethnicity is not reported for a share of records. Report-based counts overstate the number of people.
Official sources checked
Last reviewed 2026-09-02. Availability changes; if a publication now answers this question, challenge the classification below.