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Use-of-Force Disparities

Home Office use-of-force incident counts per force (April 2024 to March 2025), joined against officer headcount to give a per-1000-officer deployment intensity.

The Home Office publishes annual use-of-force statistics for England & Wales — every incident where an officer used a tactic beyond ordinary handcuffing has to be recorded on a use-of-force form. The table below shows total recorded incidents per force for the April 2024 to March 2025 reporting period, divided by that force's officer headcount from the parallel workforce statistics, to give a comparable "incidents per 1,000 officers" figure.

National median — 5,849 incidents per 1,000 officers. Total incidents across 39 forces in the reporting period: 743,032. Total officer headcount: 140,850.

Per-force comparison

Sorted by incidents per 1,000 officers, descending. A high figure is not automatically a red flag — busier urban forces answer more calls per officer, and some forces record more diligently — but it is a starting point for scrutiny.

ForceIncidentsOfficersPer 1,000 officersvs median
Cleveland Police19,3661,50412,876+120%
Cumbria Constabulary11,7541,3848,493+45%
Durham Constabulary11,7461,4008,390+43%
Nottinghamshire Police19,3692,3808,138+39%
Lancashire Constabulary28,9093,6068,017+37%
Humberside Police17,9742,2847,870+35%
Derbyshire Constabulary16,2702,1237,664+31%
Northumbria Police28,6603,8377,469+28%
Northamptonshire Police10,6891,4637,306+25%
North Yorkshire Police11,7081,6567,070+21%
Wiltshire Police8,4401,2156,947+19%
West Yorkshire Police42,4866,1306,931+18%
Thames Valley Police33,0134,9936,612+13%
Cambridgeshire Constabulary11,0401,7076,467+11%
Gloucestershire Constabulary8,5941,3496,371+9%
Leicestershire Police14,3862,2676,346+8%
South Yorkshire Police19,2443,0406,330+8%
Greater Manchester Police51,3008,1116,325+8%
Sussex Police18,9483,2305,8660%
Avon and Somerset Police19,3833,3145,8490%
Essex Police21,9683,7595,8440%
Hertfordshire Constabulary13,5802,3805,706-2%
British Transport Police15,8092,8025,642-4%
Cheshire Constabulary13,2192,4175,469-6%
Staffordshire Police10,5791,9985,295-9%
Dorset Police6,9831,4044,974-15%
Merseyside Police20,6584,1724,952-15%
Bedfordshire Police6,9701,4544,794-18%
Kent Police19,4444,1674,666-20%
Dyfed-Powys Police5,8391,2614,630-21%
Surrey Police10,6212,3444,531-23%
Lincolnshire Police5,3061,1744,520-23%
West Mercia Police11,1552,5204,427-24%
Warwickshire Police4,6471,1314,109-30%
Norfolk Constabulary7,7231,9024,060-31%
Gwent Police5,9311,5493,829-35%
West Midlands Police48,64813,6763,557-39%
Suffolk Constabulary4,7841,4153,381-42%
Metropolitan Police Service105,88932,3323,275-44%

How to read this

  • Incidents counts every use-of-force form submitted, not every officer–subject encounter. A single incident with multiple officers or multiple tactics still counts as one row on this table.
  • Per-1,000-officers uses the parallel Home Office workforce statistics as the denominator, so forces are compared on a headcount-adjusted basis.
  • vs median is deviation from the national median rate. Forces coloured amber are above the median by more than a quarter; forces coloured cyan are below the median by more than a quarter.
  • Recording culture varies. Some forces have historically under-reported low-level tactics (compliant handcuffing, unresisted restraint); HMICFRS PEEL inspections often flag this.

Source: Home Office police use-of-force statistics · Underlying ODS (Table_2c)

Reporting period: April 2024 to March 2025 · Data snapshot: 2026-07-02

Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0

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