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A federal law enforcement agency is an organizational unit, or subunit, of the federal government with the principle functions of prevention, detection, and investigation of crime and the apprehension of alleged offenders. Examples of federal law enforcement agencies include the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). BJS has surveyed federal law enforcement agencies seven times since 1996. The 2016 Census of Federal Law Enforcement Officers (CFLEO) included agencies that employed full-time officers with federal arrest authority who were also authorized (but not necessarily required) to carry firearms while on duty. The officer counts exclude officers in the U.S. Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Transportation Security Administration’s Federal Air Marshals.

Data Collections & Surveys

• Census of Federal Law Enforcement Officers (FLEO)

Publications & Products

Federal Law Enforcement Officers, 2016 - Statistical Tables Provides information on the approximately 132,000 full-time federal law enforcement officers employed by 83 federal agencies.
	Full report (PDF 482K) | Data tables (Zip format 13K) Part of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Series
Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories, 2009 Presents data on the more than 400 state, municipal, county, and federal crime laboratories operating in the United States during 2009.
	Press Release | Full report (PDF 861K) | ASCII file (36K) | Comma-delimited format (CSV) (Zip format 48K) Part of the Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories Series
Federal Law Enforcement Officers, 2008 Presents data from 73 federal law enforcement agencies that employed full-time officers with authority to make arrests and to carry a firearm while on duty.
	Full report (PDF 1M) | ASCII file (28K) | Comma-delimited format (CSV) (Zip format 36K) Part of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Series
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 | Full report (PDF 932K) | ASCII file (48K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 51K) | Codebooks and Datasets Part of the Contacts between Police and the Public Series
Women in Law Enforcement, 1987-2008 Presents data from the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) surveys, covering 1987 to 2007, and from the Census of Federal Law Enforcement Officers (FLEO), from 1996 to 2008.
	Full report (PDF 196K) | ASCII file (11K) | Spreadsheets (Zip format 9K)
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 | Full report (PDF 157K) | ASCII file (29K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 22K) Part of the Arrest-Related Deaths Series
Arrest-Related Deaths in the United States, 2003-2005 "States reported more than 2,000 arrest-related deaths from 2003 through 2005 -- Homicides by Officers Made Up More Than Half of Such Fatalities"
	Press Release | More information about this release Part of the Arrest-Related Deaths Series
Employment by Officers of inspector general of full-time personnel authorized to make arrest and carry firearms, September 2004 Table 3 from Federal Law Enforcement Officers, 2004
	Download CSV file (Data Table 2 KB)
Federal Law Enforcement Officers, 2004 Reports the results of a biennial census of federal agencies employing personnel with arrest and firearms authority.
	Full report (PDF 594K) | ASCII file (37K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 12K) Part of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Series
Federal Law Enforcement Officers, 2002 Provides national data on Federal officers with authority to make arrests and carry firearms as of June 2002.
	Full report (PDF 335K) | ASCII file (40K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 63K) Part of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Series

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Related Links

• Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) Annual Reports