Who polices the police?

Every year the police are complained about hundreds of thousands of times. What happens next is recorded, published, and almost never read. We compile that record and publish it in full, force by force, with the source and the date on every figure and the underlying files free to download.

Why this site exists

Two reasons, and they are the same reason.

So the public can act. Someone deciding whether to complain about their local force deserves to know whether complaining works there. That is a knowable fact. It is published every year. It has simply never been put anywhere an ordinary person would find it.

So forces can be held to it. Accountability data only changes behaviour when somebody is looking at it. A force whose complaint decisions are overturned six times more often than its neighbour's should have to answer for that, and it can only be asked if the comparison exists.

What we hold

Does complaining actually work?

When a force finalises a complaint and the complainant asks for a review, the reviewing body records whether the force's own outcome was reasonable and proportionate. Nationally it was found not reasonable and proportionate in 24.5% of completed reviews.

The spread is the finding. The highest force overturns roughly six times as often as the lowest, which is far too wide a gap to be explained by the complaints themselves. See every force ranked.

Force is being used far more than it was

Recorded use of force across England and Wales has risen sharply in five years, and the increase is not evenly spread. One force has more than quintupled its recorded use of force, while the largest force by volume has fallen by nearly two fifths. Recording practice changed over the period, so part of any rise reflects what forces now write down rather than what officers now do.

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