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The nature and extent of contact between police officers and residents varies by whether the contact was initiated by the police or by the resident. These contacts occur for many reasons: police provide services to community members, residents seek information or report crimes to police officers, residents are passengers or drivers during a traffic stop, police could make arrests, search residents, their vehicles or their homes, and officers could use or threaten use of physical force.
BJS measures the nature and extent of these contacts by surveying individuals in a nationally representative sample of households. Unlike other measures of police behavior, this survey is based on the reported experiences and perspectives of surveyed residents. It does not require the participation of law enforcement agencies or officers and it captures behavior from many jurisdictions and throughout the entire year.
Summary findings
Data Collections & Surveys |
Publications & Products |
Data Tables
Contacts between Police and the Public, 2008 Presents findings from a nationally representative survey of nearly 60,000 residents age 16 or older about their contact with police during the 12 months prior to the interview. | |
Press Release | PDF (932K) | ASCII file (48K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 51K) | Codebooks and Datasets
Part of the Contacts between Police and the Public Series |
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Arrest-Related Deaths in the United States, 2003-2005 Presents the first findings from the law enforcement collection of the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP), which is the largest resource of information ever collected on arrest-related deaths. | |
Press Release | PDF (157K) | ASCII file (29K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 22K) | To order paper version
Part of the Arrest-Related Deaths Series |
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Contacts between Police and the Public, 2005 Presents data over a 12-month period on the nature and characteristics of face-to-face contacts between residents of the U.S. and the police. The report also provides demographic and other characteristics of residents involved in traffic stops and use of force incidents. | |
Press Release | PDF (305K) | ASCII file (32K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 21K) | To order paper version
Part of the Contacts between Police and the Public Series |
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Citizen Complaints about Police Use of Force Presents data on citizen complaints about police use of force received by large, general purpose State and local law enforcement agencies as well as on complaint dispositions. | |
Press Release | PDF (337K) | ASCII file (34K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 60K) | Codebooks and Datasets | To order paper version
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Characteristics of Drivers Stopped by Police, 2002 Provides data on the nature and characteristics of traffic stops, as collected in the 2002 Police-Public Contact Survey, a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey. | |
PDF (337K) | ASCII file (34K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 60K) | To order paper version
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Traffic Stop Data Collection Policies for State Police, 2004 Presents findings from the 2004 Survey of State Police Agencies on policies and procedures for collecting race and ethnicity data regarding motorists involved in traffic stops. | |
PDF (544K) | ASCII file (9K) | ZIP Format (Spreadsheet 3K) | Codebooks and Datasets | To order paper version
Part of the Traffic Stop Data Collection Policies for State Police Series |
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Contacts between Police and Public: Findings from the 2002 National Survey Presents data on the nature and characteristics of contacts between residents of the U.S. and the police over a 12-month period. | |
PDF (886K) | ASCII file (62K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 25K) | To order paper version
Part of the Contacts between Police and the Public Series |
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Characteristics of Drivers Stopped by Police, 1999 Provides data on the nature and characteristics of traffic stops, as collected in the 1999 Police-Public Contact Survey. | |
PDF (198K) | ASCII file (48K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 145K) | Codebooks and Datasets
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Police Use of Force Reports the results of the Police-Public Contact Survey and describes a project to acquire use of force data from law enforcement agencies. | |
Press Release (4K) | PDF (376K) | ASCII file (123K) | Codebooks and Datasets
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Citizen Complaints about Police Use of Force "Citizens complained more than 26,000 times in 2002 about excessive police force - Evidence in about 8% of complaints justified disciplinary action" | |
Press Release | More information about this release |
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