Policing in the United States spans thousands of agencies, hundreds of thousands of sworn officers, large public budgets, frequent resident contacts and rapidly changing technology. The statistics below focus on defined U.S. populations and periods, with survey estimates, administrative counts and national crime estimates kept distinct.
Key Policing Statistics
The most broadly useful figures include:
- In 2020, local police departments employed about 473,000 full-time sworn officers in the United States.
- In 2020, local police departments employed about 126,000 full-time civilian personnel in the United States.
- In 2020, nearly $80 billion was budgeted for U.S. local police departments.
- In 2020, 64,200 full-time sworn vacancies were reported across U.S. state and local law-enforcement agencies.
- In 2022, about 49.2 million U.S. residents age 16 or older had at least one police contact.
- In 2022, about 19% of U.S. residents age 16 or older had police contact.
- In 2022, about 20.3 million U.S. residents experienced police-initiated contact.
- In 2022, approximately 29.7 million U.S. residents initiated contact with police.
- In 2016, 47% of 15,328 U.S. general-purpose law-enforcement agencies had acquired body-worn cameras.
- In 2020, 62% of U.S. local police departments deployed body-worn cameras.
- In 2020, 93% of U.S. local police departments required annual in-service training for full-time sworn officers.
- In 2020, the average annual in-service training requirement was 46 hours for full-time sworn officers in U.S. local police departments.
- In 2020, 32% of U.S. local police departments maintained a written community-policing plan.
- In 2020, 27% of U.S. local police departments used data for hot-spot analysis.
- In 2023, the revised rape category decreased an estimated 9.4% from 2022 in the United States.
- In a 2020 survey, 20 of 42 U.S. federal law-enforcement agencies owned or used facial-recognition systems.
Contents
- Policing agencies, officers and public-sector scale
- Policing budgets, staffing gaps and workforce trends
- Police-public contact statistics and reported encounters
- Body-worn camera and policing technology adoption
- Policing policies, training and operational practices
- Officer safety, crime trends and investigative technology
Policing Agencies, Officers and Public-Sector Scale
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) Local Police Departments Personnel, 2020 report covers local police departments, not sheriffs’ offices or state agencies. Its figures are survey estimates for a defined agency population.
- Local police departments employed about 473,000 full-time sworn officers and about 126,000 full-time civilian personnel in 2020.
- Almost 46% of local police departments employed fewer than 10 full-time-equivalent sworn officers; this is a share of departments, not a share of officers.
- Departments serving 250,000 or more residents represented fewer than 1% of local police departments but employed about 41% of all full-time sworn local officers.
Staffing rates varied by population served, and these averages are descriptive rather than recommended staffing standards.
| Local department population served | Average staffing in 2020 |
|---|---|
| Fewer than 10,000 residents | 2.8 FTE sworn officers per 1,000 residents |
| 50,000–99,999 residents | 1.6 FTE sworn officers per 1,000 residents |
| 100,000–249,999 residents | 1.6 FTE sworn officers per 1,000 residents |
Source: Local Police Departments Personnel, 2020. These are BJS LEMAS estimates and do not include sheriffs or state agencies.
The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program includes data from more than 19,000 federal, state, county, Tribal, university and college law-enforcement agencies. Participation and coverage vary by collection and year; the program’s agency count is a program description accessed in 2026.
See FBI Releases 2023 Crime in the Nation Statistics.
Policing Budgets, Staffing Gaps and Workforce Trends
Local policing is a major public-sector expense, but the budget figures below measure operating budgets and exclude capital expenditures. In 2020, nearly $80 billion was budgeted for local police departments nationwide, while departments serving 250,000 or more residents accounted for about 43% of local-police budgeted spending.
- Local departments serving fewer than 10,000 residents had the smallest budget per FTE sworn officer, at $109,000 in 2020; this is operating budget per officer, not total compensation.
- Primary state law-enforcement agencies reported a combined budget of about $15 billion in 2020.
- The average budget of a primary state law-enforcement agency was about $317 million in 2020, an average affected by agency size.
The BJS hiring and retention tables show a substantial reported vacancy count across state and local agencies.
| Agency group | Full-time sworn vacancies, 2020 |
|---|---|
| Local police departments | 39,500 |
| Sheriffs’ offices | 16,300 |
| Primary state agencies | 8,400 |
| Combined total | 64,200 |
Source: Hiring and Retention of State and Local Law Enforcement Officers, 2020 – Statistical Tables. These are reported LEMAS vacancies.
Among 55,000 full-time sworn personnel hired in 2020, 81% were entry-level hires and 16% were lateral hires. The percentages may not sum to 100% because of rounding or other categories.
Police-Public Contact Statistics and Reported Encounters
The Police-Public Contact Survey describes self-reported contact during the prior 12 months among U.S. residents age 16 or older. It does not measure police call-for-service totals, and one person could have multiple contacts.
In 2022, about 49.2 million residents age 16 or older had one or more police contacts, representing about 19% of that population. The share with police contact fell from 21% in 2020 to 19% in 2022, although cross-year comparisons can be affected by contact definitions and recall.
| Contact category | People in 2022 | Definition or scope |
|---|---|---|
| Any police contact | 49.2 million | Residents age 16 or older with one or more contacts |
| Police-initiated contact | 20.3 million | Self-reported resident encounters initiated by police |
| Resident-initiated contact | 29.7 million | Self-reported contacts initiated by residents |
| Traffic-accident contact | 6.7 million | Residents reporting contact resulting from a traffic accident |
| Driver pulled over | 12.4 million | Residents reporting being pulled over as the driver |
| Crime, disturbance or suspicious activity report | 15.6 million | Resident-reported contact category |
Source: Contacts Between Police and the Public, 2022.
Demographic patterns also differed by contact type. In 2022, males were more likely than females to experience police-initiated contact, at 8% versus 7%, while females were more likely than males to initiate contact, at 12% versus 11%; almost 46% of residents who initiated their most recent contact did so to report a possible crime.
Body-Worn Camera and Policing Technology Adoption
Body-worn-camera adoption has to be read by year and denominator. The 2016 BJS survey covers 15,328 general-purpose law-enforcement agencies and excludes federal, special-purpose and jail/court-only sheriffs’ agencies; the 2020 estimate covers local police departments.
| Measure | 2016 share | Population measured |
|---|---|---|
| Acquired body-worn cameras | 47% | 15,328 general-purpose agencies |
| Had dashboard cameras | 69% | General-purpose agencies |
| Had personal audio recorders | 38% | General-purpose agencies |
| Acquired body-worn cameras | 48% | Local police departments |
| Started deploying body-worn cameras | 45% | Local police departments |
Source: Body-Worn Cameras in Law Enforcement Agencies, 2016. “Started deploying” means at least one camera in service, not full deployment.
Among general-purpose agencies that acquired body-worn cameras in 2016, 95% had placed at least one camera in service and 86% had a formal policy or a policy in draft form. Among acquiring local police departments, 60% had fully deployed the cameras, compared with 49% of acquiring sheriffs’ offices.
Cost was a commonly reported barrier among agencies without body-worn cameras: 77% cited video storage or disposal costs and 74% cited hardware costs. Multiple reasons could be selected, so these percentages are not exclusive.
By 2020, 62% of local police departments deployed body-worn cameras. This later figure should not be treated as current adoption, and deployment is not the same as universal officer use; see Local Police Departments, Procedures, Policies, and Technology, 2020 – Statistical Tables.
Policing Policies, Training and Operational Practices
Policy and practice measures describe whether departments reported a requirement, plan or tool; they do not establish quality, compliance or effectiveness. In 2020, 93% of local police departments required annual in-service training for full-time sworn officers, with an average annual requirement of 46 hours.
- About 32% of local police departments maintained a written community-policing plan in 2020, down from 42% in the comparable 2016 measure; this is not a measure of implementation quality.
- Sixteen percent of local police departments had a civilian complaint review board or agency in 2020; the figure measures presence, not complaint outcomes.
- Twenty-seven percent of local police departments required an external-agency investigation for use of force resulting in death, and those departments covered 33% of officers.
- Twenty-seven percent of local police departments used data for hot-spot analysis in 2020, while all departments serving populations of 250,000 or more reported using it.
- Eighty percent of local police departments used social media in 2020; this measures any use, not intensity or effectiveness.
The department-weighted and officer-weighted external-investigation figures are not interchangeable: a policy can exist in a smaller or larger department, changing the share of officers covered.
Officer Safety, Crime Trends and Investigative Technology
National crime trends and investigative-technology statistics use different sources and scopes. FBI 2023 crime figures are national estimates based on reported data, while hate-crime trends use agencies meeting a defined common-reporting-month or common-quarter criterion.
| FBI measure | 2023 result compared with 2022 | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Revised rape category | Estimated decrease of 9.4% | United States; revised category |
| Aggravated assault | Estimated decrease of 2.8% | United States |
| Robbery | Estimated decrease of 0.3% | United States |
| Reported hate-crime incidents | Decrease of 0.6%, from 10,687 to 10,627 | Agencies meeting FBI trend-data criteria |
Source: FBI Releases 2023 Crime in the Nation Statistics. These figures should not be read as a complete measure of policing effectiveness.
Facial-recognition use is also documented for a selected federal population rather than for all policing agencies. In a 2020 GAO survey, 20 of 42 federal law-enforcement agencies owned facial-recognition systems or used systems owned by others, and three federal agencies acknowledged using facial recognition on images from the January 6 Capitol attack.
Source: Facial Recognition Technology: Federal Law Enforcement Agencies Should Better Assess Privacy and Other Risks. These findings do not measure accuracy, crime reduction or public acceptance, and they do not describe state or local agencies.
Across this overview, BJS LEMAS figures are survey estimates of defined agency populations; PPCS figures are self-reported resident estimates for the prior 12 months; FBI UCR figures depend on agency participation and reporting completeness; and body-worn-camera figures from 2016 are historical adoption measures rather than current estimates.