Police use of force tops 800,000 reports for first time

The annual data, covering the year to March 2025, recorded 812,449 reports, a rise of nine per cent on the previous year. Each report represents a single officer’s use of force against a single person; where two officers restrain the same individual, two reports are generated.

The Home Office cautions that the increase reflects, at least in part, continued improvement in recording practices across forces rather than a straightforward rise in the use of force itself. A five per cent increase in arrests over the same period is also likely to have contributed.

In an attempt to cut through the reporting inflation, the Home Office published its first-ever estimate of the number of individuals actually subjected to force. Working from the 39 per cent of reports that contained sufficient data to support the calculation, statisticians estimated that around 230,000 people experienced use of force during the year, approximately 73 per cent of the number of reports recorded.

Restraint tactics, principally handcuffing, remained by far the most common form of force, featuring in 77 per cent of reports. Officers cited the need to protect themselves from violence as the most frequent reason for using force, recorded in 61 per cent of reports, followed by assisting in making an arrest (54 per cent) and protecting other officers (52 per cent). Alcohol was the most commonly recorded impact factor, present in 37 per cent of incidents.

Arrest remained the most common outcome, recorded in 70 per cent of reports.

Twenty-eight of the 44 forces in England and Wales, including the British Transport Police, which joined the data collection from 2024,  submitted higher use of force figures than the previous year. The remaining 16 recorded falls or static numbers.

The statistics are published annually by the Home Office and have been classified as official statistics since 2021.