Washington, D.C.
FBI National Press Office
(202) 324-3691
November 14, 2022

FBI Releases Third Quarter 2022 Statistics from the National Use-of-Force Data Collection

According to statistics reported to the FBI for the third quarter data, January 2022 to September 2022, 8,482 law enforcement agencies submitted use-of-force data to the National Use-of-Force Data Collection, which is managed by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.1 The data represents more than 60 percent of all federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, and college/university sworn officers.

The FBI also released updated 2021 data. For 2021, 8,389 law enforcement agencies submitted use-of-force data to the National Use-of-Force Data Collection.

January to September 2022 Data Summary

For the first three quarters of 2022, the FBI released national-level data based on a threshold of 60 percent participation by federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, and college/university sworn officers. At the current level of participation, the FBI releases national data as ratios and percentages in terms of the most frequently reported responses to questions (in list format without actual counts).

Agencies submitted data concerning qualifying uses of force that included any action that resulted in the death or serious bodily injury2 of a person, or the discharge of a firearm at or in the direction of a person. If no qualifying incidents occurred, agencies submitted a zero report for that month. These data include those agencies that submitted at least one incident report or zero report for 2022.

Type of Incident

In 2022, 51.3 percent of use-of-force incidents submitted to the FBI resulted in serious bodily injury of a person, 32.3 percent caused the death of a person, and 16.9 percent involved the discharge of a firearm at or in the direction of a person.

Reason for Initial Contact

The most reported reasons for initial contact in 2022 were as follows. (Because of rounding, numbers may not add to 100.0 percent.)

  • 56.0 percent involved officers responding to unlawful or suspicious activities.
  • 11.8 percent stemmed from traffic stops.
  • 7.7 percent resulted from warrant services/court orders.
  • 6.4 percent were for medical, mental health, or welfare checks on individuals.
  • 4.0 percent followed routine patrols other than traffic stops.
  • 3.2 percent involved follow-up investigations.
  • 1.1 percent were unknown and unlikely to ever be known.

Type of Force Applied

The types of force reported to be used most often include firearms; hands, fists, or feet; electronic control weapons; canines; and other.

Type of Resistance Encountered

In use-of-force incidents, officers most often encountered individuals who failed to comply with verbal commands or other types of passive resistance. Other types of resistance encountered included displaying a weapon at an officer or another individual, attempting to escape or flee custody, using a firearm against an officer or another individual, or resisting being handcuffed or arrested.

To protect the privacy of individuals involved in these use-of-force incidents, regional and state levels of analysis are not available with data that represents 60 percent participation. The UCR Program is working diligently to develop new ways to maximize data transparency while fulfilling our responsibility to protect the privacy of all individuals.


1 The FBI uses a total count of 860,000 sworn police employees, an estimate by the UCR Program, based on all known and reasonably presumed federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, and college/university sworn law enforcement personnel eligible to participate in the National Use-of-Force Data Collection.

2 For the purpose of this data collection, the definition of serious bodily injury is based, in part, on Title 18, United States Code, section 2246 (4):  The term “‘serious bodily injury’ means bodily injury that involves substantial risk of death, unconsciousness, protracted and obvious disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty.”

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