The FBI runs the country's only official use-of-force count. For most of its life it could not publish a national total, because reporting is voluntary and too few agencies chose to report.
The FBI will not release national use-of-force totals until participating agencies employ at least 80 percent of the country's sworn officers. The program began in 2019 at 46 percent coverage. It first crossed the line in 2024, in its sixth year, then slipped back below it the year after.[src]
Two coverage numbers that get conflated: in 2022, participating agencies employed 53% of the country's sworn officers but were only 37% of its agencies. Big departments report and small ones do not, so officer-coverage runs well ahead of agency-coverage.[src]
| Year | Officer coverage | Above threshold | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 46% | no | First reporting year of the program.[src] | |
| 2022 | 53% | no | Share of sworn officers employed by participating agencies.[src] | |
| 2024 | 80% | yes | First year clearing the 80 percent release threshold, in the program's sixth year.[src] | |
| 2025 | 78% | no | Fell back below the threshold the following year.[src] |
This is the legibility gap in its purest form. The state has the broadest definition of all, every use of force that kills, seriously injures, or fires a weapon at a person, and the least to show for it, because it cannot compel its own agencies to answer. In the years the federal number stayed sealed, the counts that filled the vacuum came from a newspaper, a nonprofit, and a volunteer with a spreadsheet.
Each row recomputes a headline fact from the committed release. If a number on this page is wrong, a row here goes red.
A check did not pass. The page and the release have drifted.
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