Guidance

User guide to police powers and procedures

Updated 26 September 2024

Applies to England and Wales

1. Introduction

1.1 About this user guide

This user guide is designed to be a useful reference document with explanatory notes on the issues and classifications that are key to the production and presentation of the Home Office’s annual statistics on the use of Police powers and procedures in England and Wales.

Prior to September 2024, the Police powers and procedures statistical bulletin was published as 2 reports. Given the volume and variety of topics covered, a decision has been made to split the release into 3 separate statistical bulletins.

The first release covers the use of stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions. The second contains the use of roads policing powers, which covers fixed penalty notices and other outcomes for motoring offences and breath tests. The third release covers the use of Police custody (including detentions over 24 hours, intimate searches) and pre-charge bail.

1.2 Where are the latest published figures?

Dates of future releases are pre-announced on the statistics: release calendar on GOV.UK.

Home Office statistical releases in the Police powers and procedures series are available on the GOV.UK website. Prior to the year ending March 2008 this data was published by the Ministry of Justice. Data for earlier years can be found on the Police powers and procedures archive page.

1.3 Designation

‘Police powers and procedures, England and Wales’ is designated as ‘Accredited Official Statistics (National Statistics)’, a subset of Official Statistics which have been granted accreditation by the UK Statistics Authority. Accredited Official Statistics (National Statistics) are produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics and undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. They are produced free from political interference.

The statistics were originally assessed as National Statistics in 2012 and, most recently, a compliance check was carried out by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in 2024 which confirmed that the stop and search statistics should continue to be designated as Accredited Official Statistics. The other statistics covered in the Police Powers Collection were most recently assessed by the OSR in 2020.

Due to the introduction of new data (such as the introduction of Police Custody statistics from the year ending March 2022), some sections and metrics included in these publications are currently undergoing development to improve data quality and increase the scope of data published. Where necessary, individual sections and metrics have been labelled as Official Statistics in Development to reflect that caution must be taken when interpreting this data as limitations may not be fully known. Information on the designation of each specific area and metrics are included in the sections for each topic in this user guide (chapters 6 to 12).

Further information about the designation of Official Statistics can be found on the OSR website.

1.4 Statistics covered

The series provides information on the use of various police powers recorded by police forces in England and Wales, including:

• stop and searches conducted by the 43 territorial police forces and the British Transport Police
• arrests carried out by the 43 territorial police forces
• detentions under sections 136 and 135 of the Mental Health Act 1983 carried out by a subset of the 43 territorial polices forces and British Transport Police
• fixed penalty notices (FPNs) and other outcomes for motoring offences issued by the 43 territorial police forces
• alcohol screening breath tests carried by the 43 territorial police forces
• detentions and strip searches in police custody carried out by a subset of the 43 territorial police forces
• individuals released on pre-charge bail or released under investigation (RUI) and individuals who voluntarily attended interview by the 43 territorial police forces

Full information on the scope of each specific area is included in the individual sections for each topic in this user guide (chapters 6 to 12).

Statistics from other data sources may be referenced in the release (for example, the recorded crime series). Where this is the case, links to data sources are made in the relevant sections of the release. 

2. Data quality

This chapter provides a high-level summary of the quality assurance undertaken in producing these statistics. This chapter also provides an overview of the level of data quality for each individual topic covered by the statistics. Specific data quality issues and interpretation considerations are given in the respective chapter for each topic in this user guide (chapters 6 to 12)

2.1 Quality assurance

All the data received by the Home Office undergoes a strict quality assurance process to ensure the data is fit for purpose and published to the highest possible standard.

While all datasets undergo a thorough QA process, the level of quality assurance varies according to factors such as the profile of the dataset, the likelihood of error, and what the data is used for. Data that is widely used and informs important and high-profile decisions will undertake the highest level of quality assurance. Other data will undergo a more limited, but proportionate level of quality assurance. This ensures that the data is fit-for-purpose in terms of the individual uses of each dataset. The quality assurance checks include looking for things such as:

• missing and incomplete data
• inconsistencies in the data
• extreme values

Once these checks have been complete, Home Office statisticians undertake trend analysis to look for unusual or unexpected trends in the data. Any inconsistencies or unusual trends are flagged with forces, who are requested to either explain the trends, or resubmit amended data. Before publication, data is sent back to forces for verification.

Details of any known data quality issues are included in the relevant part of the bulletin, and data tables. Any substantial revisions to the dataset are flagged in the ‘data quality’ section in each release.

2.2 Missing data

Forces have a statutory requirement to submit the data in this series to the Home Office, via the Annual Data Requirement (ADR). There may, however, be some cases where forces are unable to provide the data required, for example, if they have issues with their recording systems. Where this is the case, the Home Office aims to work closely with forces to find solutions. If data is missing, this is highlighted in the relevant table and or text. Where appropriate, estimates are sometimes calculated based on partial or previous data from a force.

2.3 Strengths and limitations

The section below considers the process before the data is submitted to the Home Office. It outlines the strengths and limitations of each dataset. Where there are limitations, the implications of these in terms of uses of the data are outlined. The strengths and limitations of the data vary from force to force depending on specific internal data collection and quality assurance procedures.

The quality of each dataset is described below. This is based on assessments by Home Office statisticians and consider the scale of any data quality issues, how well known these issues are, and how the data is used. Each dataset is assessed as one of the following categories:

• high - there are few issues with the data, and it can be used with confidence; limitations of the data are known, along with the likely impact of them
• adequate - the data has some known limitations, and these should be considered when using it; however, these are known, and the data is fit for purpose
• low - there are significant data quality issues, and in some cases the limitations of the data are not fully known; the data should be used with considerable caution

2.3.1 Stop and search

Strengths: Under the code of practice for the Statutory Powers of stop and search (see PACE code A), officers are required to make a record of the details of a stop and search at the time of the encounter (where appropriate). On request, they may be required to give a copy of the record to the person searched. This requirement reduces the risk of a stop and search going unrecorded.

Having a universal code of practice helps to ensure that arrests are standardised across forces, both in terms of the processes involved, and the data recorded. The Best use of stop and search scheme (set up in 2014) requires forces to comply with a number of conditions designed to improve transparency around stop and search. This included improved data recording, particularly around the outcome of a stop and search and whether it was linked to a search. Data on the Best use of stop and search scheme was collected on a voluntary basis for the first time in the year ending March 2016. Further information on this data can be found in the year ending March 2016 Police powers and procedures statistical bulletin. In the year ending March 2018, all forces in England and Wales were signed up to the scheme. As the data recording processes have become embedded over recent years, the publication no longer refers to the scheme and this information can be found as part of the outcomes data. Forces’ use and recording of stop and search are monitored by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS). HMICFRS carries out regular inspections and produce reports on the inspections.

Some forces publish stop and search data to increase transparency and accountability, as well as to monitor performance. This demonstrates a need for forces to have accurate and reliable data.

Limitation: Some forces use paper records to record encounters. These are more likely to involve recording errors, or may not be uploaded into force systems in a timely manner.
Implication: The number of stops and searches may be undercounted in some forces. In some forces, there may be a time-lag between the search happening and being uploaded onto the force system. In particular, searches that occurred towards the end of a financial year may not be recorded on force systems until the following year.

Limitation: Despite the requirement to do so, there may be some cases where an officer may not record an encounter, or may not record key details.
Implication: The search totals may be undercounted, and some details (such as ethnicity, sex and age) may be missing. However, this is likely to be rare.

Limitation: A stop and search may be conducted for a number of reasons (see PACE code A). Where officers are unsure of exactly what search reason the search should come under, they may record in the wrong group. Where the search reason has not been recorded, they may be recorded as ‘Other’.
Implication: The exact breakdown of the reason for search may have some inaccuracies. In particular there may be an over count of the number of searches for ‘other’ reason.

Limitation: The self-defined ethnicity of the person searched is recorded according to the ethnicity stated by the person at the time of search.
Implication: In a small number of cases, the self-defined ethnicity may not be the same as the actual ethnicity of the person stopped.

Limitation: The transition to electronic systems may cause some data quality issues, for example, missing data on the ethnicity of the person stopped, or reason for the search.
Implication: Some forces may have large numbers of cases where the ethnicity of the person or the reason for the search is unknown in a given year.

Limitation: The date of birth of the person searched may be recorded incorrectly, or the age may be estimated.
Implication: In a small number of cases, the recorded age may not be the same as the actual age of the person searched.

Limitation: Gender and or sex of the person searched may not be recorded consistently across different forces.
Implication: Though the data collection specifies that the sex of the person searched should be provided, it is likely that recording includes a mixture of physiological and personal identity.

Limitation: A change to police force systems is required to record a broader range of outcomes; some forces have not yet changed their systems to fully capture the wider range of outcomes.
Implication: Several forces have stated the ‘no further action’ category also includes a small number of cases where the outcome is unknown.

Limitation: A change to police force systems is required to record whether the reason or object for search is linked to the arrest (or other outcome); some forces have not yet changed their systems fully capture whether a link was present or not.
Implication: Some forces have provided a large number of cases where whether the reason or object for search is linked to the arrest (or other outcome) is unknown. Therefore, the data presented is likely to be an undercount of the proportion of stop and searches where the reason for stop was linked to the outcome.

Limitation: The roll-out of mobile devices to record stop and search has led to inconsistencies in the way officers record outcomes following a stop and search.
Implication: Some forces reported that officers had chosen multiple or contradicting outcomes on the mobile device. Where this could not be resolved the Home Office used estimation methods to calculate the percentage of linked outcomes.

Summary: The stop and search data are of high quality and any issues are likely to have a minimal impact on the data quality. The recording of stop and search is improving in line with the introduction of the Best use of stop and search scheme, HMICFRS inspections, and improved recording methods within forces. The data is easily accessible and regularly used by forces. Stop and search outcomes and links between reason for search and outcomes data are of medium quality. Some forces currently have difficulties in recording all of this data. However, the recording of stop and search is improving in line with HMICRS inspections and improved recording methods within forces.

2.3.2 Arrests

Strengths: Under the code of practice for the Statutory Powers of arrest (see PACE Code G, arresting officers are required to record details of an arrest at the time of arrest, or as soon as possible thereafter. This ensures that arrest details are recorded as accurately and in as timely a manner as possible, reducing the risk of records being missed.

Having a universal code of practice helps to ensure that arrests are standardised across forces, both in terms of the processes involved, and the data recorded. Forces use arrest records to inform custody records which are used for a number of administrative purposes, including processing arrestees and monitoring performance. It is essential for forces’ operational needs that they keep these records up to date.

Police forces have their own internal auditing methods to ensure the data is accurate and up to date before sending data to the Home Office. Custody Sergeants are also employed in police stations to ensure that those brought into custody are processed in line with the code of practice. This includes the recording of the relevant data which feeds into this dataset.

Limitation: Due to the transition to fraud offences being reported to Action Fraud, some forces initially excluded fraud arrests from the year ending March 2014 onwards. This was resolved in most cases, but it is possible that a small number of cases may still be excluded.
Implication: The number of fraud arrests for the year ending March 2014 onwards is likely to be a slight undercount, although most forces were able to resubmit data to resolve this issue.

Limitation: The self-defined ethnicity of the person arrested is recorded according to the ethnicity stated by the arrestee at the time of arrest.
Implication: For most forces, in a small number of cases, the self-defined ethnicity may not be the same as the actual ethnicity of the arrestee. . In November 2022, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) changed to a new data management system, which impacted the recording of self-defined ethnicity. In the year ending March 2024, the MPS reported self-defined ethnicity as unknown for 69% of records (up from 25% in the year ending March 2023, and 4% in the year ending March 2022). The Home Office is working with the Metropolitan Police to improve their recording of self-defined ethnicity data. Caution should therefore be taken when interpreting self-defined ethnicity data for the MPS. The MPS’s officer-observed data has a higher completion rate than their self-defined ethnicity data, with missing information in just 13% of their arrest records in the year ending March 2024.

Limitation: Where an individual is arrested for multiple offences at the same time, only the most serious offence is recorded.
Implication: The figures relate to the total number of persons arrested on separate occasions, not the total number of offences for which an arrest was made. For less serious offences the number of persons arrested is likely to be less than the number of arrests. In some cases, forces are not able to identify the most serious offence and have therefore provided the first linked offence to the arrest.

Limitation: For some forces, an arrest will only be recorded if an individual is taken to a custody suite and a custody record is created.
Implication: The number of recorded arrests is likely to be lower than the total number of arrests. For example, in cases where an individual is arrested and then de-arrested before being taken into custody, this may not be recorded.

Limitation: Forces categorise the reason for arrest based on the reasons included in their custody system. This list can differ between forces, and in some cases different forces may categorise arrests in different ways.
Implication: Data on the reasons for arrest may not be perfectly comparable across forces. However, the impact of this is likely to be small, as most cases are relatively straightforward to categorise.

Where a person has been arrested for one or more notifiable offence on the same occasion, forces are asked to record the arrest against the offence with the highest maximum penalty (the primary arrest). Kent, North Yorkshire, North Wales, and Devon and Cornwall police forces have only been able to identify primary arrests since the following dates:

• Kent – November 2018
• North Yorkshire – April 2020
• North Wales – April 2020
• Devon and Cornwall – April 2022

Prior to these dates they counted every offence as a separate arrest.

In the year ending March 2024, Derbyshire changed from using the offence with the highest Crime Harm Index to using the ‘primary offence’ flagged on the arrest record. Therefore, their offence breakdown may not be fully comparable to previous years.

Cambridgeshire had only considered the first offence where a person had been arrested for multiple offences prior to the year ending March 2022, and Gloucestershire only considered the offence flagged on their recording system as a “main” offence prior to the year ending March 2023. They therefore had not reported arrests where the first or “main” offence was non-notifiable and a second offence was notifiable.

Prior to the year ending March 2023, Leicestershire Police were not able to identify all notifiable offences. Arrests prior to that date may have been under-reported.

In the years ending March 2023 and March 2024, Lancashire has stated there may be some under-reporting of the number of arrests due to issues with linking arrests to offence type.

Prior to the year ending March 2023, Avon and Somerset were counting some arrests under multiple offence groups, and therefore over-reporting the number of arrests.

In this collection, an arrest is counted for each occasion a person is arrested, provided that the arrest is for an offence which is not related to an offence for which the person has already been subject to arrest during the same year. However, some forces are not able to link separate arrests for connected offences if a new arrest record was created for the second arrest. Therefore, there may be some instances in the dataset where arrests for connected offences may be counted more than once.

Summary: The arrest data is generally of a high standard and has very few long-term or current issues. As forces regularly use the data to process persons who come into custody, it is in their own interests to ensure the data comes from a reliable and accurate source.

2.3.3 Detentions under the Mental Health Act 1983

Strengths: Data on detentions under the Mental Health Act was collected on a voluntary basis for the first time in the year ending March 2016, when 15 forces submitted data. Since the year ending March 2017 at least 41 of the 43 forces in England and Wales have been able to provide data.

Limitation: Some forces struggle to provide further breakdowns of detentions under section 136 of the Act.
Implication: Though the total number of section 136 detentions are thought to be of good quality, some forces were unable to provide reliable breakdowns by age, gender, or ethnicity. Estimation methods have been used in some cases; however, many cases have been placed in the “not known” categories. This also applies to the categories for the reasons for using a police vehicle, and reasons for using a police station.

Limitation: Many forces struggle to provide accurate information on detentions under section 135 of the Act. These detentions involve mental health professionals and the data is often held by the NHS rather than the police.
Implication: Due to the provisional and incomplete nature of this dataset, these statistics have been designated as ‘Official Statistics in development’, to acknowledge that further development will take place in the coming future. The Home Office is working with forces to understand the issues they face with this data collection and will consider whether any changes to the data return requirement are needed.

Summary: Data on detentions under section 136 of the Act is thought to be of high quality at the aggregate level, and medium to high quality when considering further breakdowns. Data on detentions under section 135 of the Act is thought to be of low quality and has therefore been designated as ‘Official Statistics in development’. The Home Office is working with forces to understand the issues they face with this data collection and will consider whether any changes to the data return requirement are needed.

2.3.4 Fixed penalty notices (FPNs) and other outcomes following motoring offences (FPNs)

Strengths: The data collected comes directly from a national police database (PentiP). For HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to process payments for FPNs, the details must be taken from the PentiP system.

As the data is collected and processed centrally, the data is processed in a consistent way which ensures the data is mostly comparable between forces.

However, some forces have joint ticketing offices, where all (or most) FPNs are recorded under one force only, and a number of forces (North Wales, South Wales, Gwent, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) do not record all outcomes on the PentiP system. Furthermore, there is a cleansing process which means that some FPNs (particularly cancelled FPNs) can be removed from the PentiP system from 6 months after being recorded. For that reason, after publication in the main release the figures become fixed, and revisions are not made to data from previous years in subsequent releases.

As the data is collected in a central database, any issues can be resolved at a central point of contact in a consistent manner.

Limitation: In 2011, the PentiP system was introduced to record FPNs.
Implication: Data from 2011 onwards is not directly comparable with older years (available in previous editions of this bulletin).

Limitation: Although forces may validate their data internally, there are no specific quality assurance processes carried out by the PentiP team before the data is sent to the Home Office.
Implication: Data put on the system by forces is assumed to be correct, as this is important in effectively processing FPNs. For example, when issuing a driver with a fine, the details should be correct, as any incorrect details are likely to be queried. However, the Home Office has no way of verifying individual cases.

Limitation: Data on other outcomes, such as the driver retraining and court action data, is not recorded consistently by all forces.
Implication: Comparisons between forces for outcomes other than FPNs are more difficult to make, Furthermore, as this is an administrative dataset used by police forces, amendments can be made to the system, which may be done differently across forces.

Limitation: Not all forces record all motoring offences and subsequent disposals on the PentiP system.
Implication: Data may not be directly comparable between forces and should not be considered a complete count of motoring offences resulting in fixed penalty notices and other outcomes.

Limitation: Metropolitan Police Service do not record all camera-detected motoring offences and subsequent disposals for motoring offences on the PentiP system.
Implication: Data the Home Office hold for Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is a combination of data from the PentiP system and the MPS’ internal “Dome” adjudication system. Efforts have been made to remove any duplicated cases appearing on both PentiP and Dome, though some duplicates may remain. Further work is ongoing to better understand the scope of the MPS data returned to ensure the data is complete, direct comparisons with previous years and other forces should therefore be made with caution.

Limitation: During the COVID-19 pandemic several forces experienced a shortage in staff and experienced a backlog in motoring offences that needed to be updated to receive an outcome.
Implication: In 2020 and 2021 there was an increased number of offences with an ‘incomplete’ disposal due to forces lacking the capacity to close offences with the appropriate disposal.

Summary: The data on motoring offences resulting in FPNs is of high quality, whereas the data on other outcomes (such as driver retraining courses) is of medium quality. The data is collected by a central system (PentiP) which is managed and maintained by an external company (Northgate), and the Home Office receive a cut of the data each year. This data is of high quality. Since the year ending March 2021, part of the Metropolitan Police Service data is received directly from the force and is of medium quality.

2.3.5 Breath tests

Strengths: Several forces are moving towards the electronic recording of breath tests. This means that data is uploaded onto force systems immediately, and there is less risk of inaccuracies.

The data shows the total number of breath tests and the total number positive or refused. These figures are unlikely to be affected by any substantial data quality issues, which might be expected when looking at more detailed breakdowns of breath tests.

Limitation: Some forces use paper records to record breath tests.
Implication: Increased risk of inaccuracies in the data put onto the system and in some cases could lead to undercounting of the figures.

Limitation: Some forces operate collaborative road policing units. In such cases, breath tests conducted by an officer for one force may be recorded by another force.
Implication: Data on the number of tests conducted by a particular police force may be slightly inaccurate. This will only affect a small number of tests and will not affect the national picture.

Limitation: There may be cases where the result given by a breath test is incorrect. This will not be reflected in the figures.
Implication: The figures will show the number of positive or refused breath tests at the time of conducting the test but will not show whether the person was above the legal drink driving limit.

Limitation: Records are not uploaded onto systems immediately, and in some cases may not be uploaded at all. This is more likely for negative breath tests which have a limited administrative purpose.
Implication: Some breath tests (particularly negative tests) may not be entered into the system. This could lead to an undercounting of breath tests, and an inflated proportion of positive or refused breath tests.

Summary: The data is considered to be of adequate quality. The data is subject to some under-reporting of breath tests, in particular when the result is negative. This is particularly relevant for forces that do not operate electronic devices.

2.3.6 Police custody and other PACE powers

Strengths: For the first time in the year ending March 2022, the Home Office collected data on all people who have been detained in police custody. Information on strip searches that have taken place in custody was also collected for the first time.
Information on the age, sex and ethnicity of people detained in custody has been collected as well as information on all offences linked to the custody record. Other data collected as part of this collection includes whether an Appropriate Adult was called out, whether a child was detained overnight and whether a detained adult was declared vulnerable.

This data was collected on a voluntary basis for the year ending March 2022, which is standard practice for all new collections introduced to the ADR to allow time for forces to embed recording processes and make changes to their systems. Many forces reported that it would not be viable for them to provide data due to issues with extracting the data from their custody systems. As such, in the year ending March 2023, only 40 forces were able to provide data for the custody data collection and 41 forces were able to provide data for the strip search data collection. Therefore, these statistics are labelled as ‘Official Statistics in development’ and any analysis should be treated with caution, due to the incomplete nature of the dataset. The Home Office continues to work with forces to improve the quality of the data.

Data on warrants for further detention is also collected by the relevant courts. This allows data to be cross referenced between 2 sources.

Limitation: Some forces have difficulty extracting this data, as the methods for recording and extracting these datasets are not well established.
Implication: Some forces provide limited data, and others provide no data. Therefore, the data presented is likely to be an undercount of the use of these powers.

Limitation: Many forces use manual processes to record this data.
Implication: Some cases may not be recorded which could lead to an undercount of the figures.

Limitation: Forces provide all offences linked to a custody record – including non-notifiable offences.
Implication: Caution should be made when making comparisons to the arrests data series as the arrests collection does not include non-notifiable offences.

Summary: The data provided in this section is often limited. Where data is provided, it is considered to be of adequate quality.

2.3.7 Pre-charge bail and released under investigation

Strengths: Data on the number of pre-charge bails by bail length was collected on a voluntary basis for the first time in the year ending March 2018. In the year ending March 2021 the Home Office expanded the collection to include data on released under investigation, breaches of pre-charge bail and voluntary attendance of interview. Including data on age, sex, ethnicity, offence type, outcome and interview location. In the year ending March 2023, 41 forces were able to provide data on the number of pre-charge bails, 30 forces provided data on the number of released under investigation, 24 provided data on voluntary attendance of interview and 21 forces provided data on breaches of pre-charge bail.

Limitation: Some forces are only able to provide the period to which the initial bail was granted.
Implication: Individuals are given a ‘bailed to’ date stating the period on which they’re bailed for. Some forces are not able to capture that actual date the bail finished when an individual has their bail cancelled prior to that ‘bailed to’ date. Therefore, some forces are only able to count the period in which the initial bail was granted for. This may inflate bail length periods.

Limitation: Some forces are unable to provide an accurate length an individual was on bail, released under investigation or voluntary attendance for.
Implication: Several forces reported that records do not capture the actual date that pre-charge bail, released under investigation or voluntary attendance finished as officers do not always close the records, Several forces use the date of the disposal as the end of bail, RUI, or voluntary attendance, and in some cases this may include the time the case is with the CPS. This may inflate bail length periods. Moreover, whilst the Home Office asked forces to provide the duration of voluntary interview as the time from the first interview until the outcome of the offence is reached, the Home Office cannot be certain this was consistent across forces so this may cause voluntary attendance lengths to be inaccurate an inconsistent across forces.

Limitation: Several forces are unable to identify instances where an individual has been converted from pre-charge bail to released under investigation and vice versa.
Implication: For these forces that cannot separately identify released under investigation and pre-charge bail, it will result in an inflated bail or released under investigation length, For example, if an individual was placed on bail for 10 days and then converted to RUI for 20 days. The individual will only show as a record in the released under investigation data with a length of 30 days. This may result in an undercount of released under investigation and pre-charge bail records and an inflation of bail or RUI length periods in some forces data.

Limitation: Forces were asked to provide the duration of each offence linked to an individual instance of bail, RUI, or voluntary attendance of interview.
Implication: Some forces may be unable to provide the length of bail, RUI or voluntary attendance of interview for each individual offence linked to the record. Instead, they may only be able to provide the length of one linked offence. This may mean that the bail, RUI or voluntary attendance of interview length is not a true reflection of the length for each offence.

Limitation: There may be cases where an officer may not record the voluntary attendance of interview or may not record key details. For some forces, voluntary attendance of interview will only be recorded if an individual attends interview at a police station.
Implication: The number of recorded voluntary attendances is likely to be lower than the total number of voluntary attendances and may be missing some details (such as ethnicity, gender, age, or offence interviewed for). For example, in instances where an individual is interviewed outside a police station in relation to a crime, this may not be recorded. Additionally, this may result in an undercount of interviews that occur in ‘other’ locations.

Limitation: Gender and/or sex of the individual may not be recorded consistently across different forces.
Implication: Though the data collection specifies that the gender of the person should be provided, it is likely that recording includes a mixture of physiological and personal identity.

Limitation: Some forces have difficulty extracting this data, as the methods for recording and extracting these datasets are not well established.
Implication: Some forces provide limited data, and others provide no data. Therefore, the data presented is likely to be an undercount of the number of pre-charge bails, released under investigations, voluntary interviews, and breaches of pre-charge bail. Due to the provisional and incomplete nature of this dataset, these statistics have been designated as ‘Official Statistics in Development’, to acknowledge that further development will take place in the coming future. The Home Office is working with forces to understand the issues they face with this data collection and will consider whether any changes to the data return requirement are needed.

Limitation: Forces may categorise the outcomes of offences in different ways.
Implication: Data on the outcome of pre-charge bails, released under investigations and voluntary interviews may not be perfectly comparable across forces. However, the impact of this is likely to be relatively small, as most outcomes are relatively straightforward to categorise.

Limitation: The date of birth of the person released on pre-charge bail, released under investigation, who voluntarily attended interview or who breached pre-charge bail may be recorded incorrectly, or the age may be estimated.
Implication: In a small number of cases, the recorded age may not be the same as the actual age of the individual on pre-charge bail, released under investigation, or who voluntarily attended interview or breached pre-charge bail.

Limitation: Some forces are unable to provide the offence an individual was on bail for when they breached their pre-charge bail conditions.
Implication: Data on the offence type will be incomplete and should be used with caution.

Limitation: Forces may have difficulty identifying the outcome of a record.
Implication: Some forces are not able to extract the outcome of a pre-charge bail, release under investigation or voluntary attendance as they are outside of the custody record. As a result, the data is incomplete and should be used with caution to give an indicative picture only.

Limitation: When an individual is placed on PCB or RUI, or they are interviewed or breach bail for multiple offences at one time all offences should be recorded however several forces are only able to provide the most serious offence or the first offence on the arrest record.
Implication: The figures relate to the total number of individuals on pre-charge bail, released under investigation, interviewed and who breached bail. However, forces were also asked to provide all offences an individual was placed on pre-charge bail, released under investigation or interviewed for. In some cases, forces are unable to identify all offence linked to a record and have provided the principal (most serious offence) or the first offence linked to the arrest.

Limitation: The self-defined ethnicity of the person on pre-charge bail, released under investigation, who breached pre-charge bail or voluntarily attended interview is recorded according to the ethnicity stated by the individual at the time of arrest or interview.
Implication: In a small number of cases, the self-defined ethnicity may not be the same as the actual ethnicity of the individual.

Limitation: Some forces will interview multiple different individuals several times in connection with the same offence under the same custody record.
Implication: The figures relate to the total number of individuals who voluntarily attend interview. However, with the current data it is not possible to confidently determine whether all individuals under the same custody record are the same individuals being interviewed multiple times. As such this may result in an inflation of the number of individuals who voluntarily attended interview.

Summary: Data on pre-charge bails, released under investigation, voluntary attendance and breaches of pre-charge bail is thought to be of low to medium quality and has therefore been designated as ‘Official Statistics in development’. The Home Office is working with forces to understand the issues they face with this data collection and will consider whether any changes to the data return requirement are needed.

3. User engagement

3.1 Uses of the data

The statistics produced in the series are used by a range of users to monitor the use of police powers in England and Wales. Uses of the data are listed below and specific are described in further detail in the sections for each topic (chapters 6 to 12 of this user guide).

Informing the general public – the statistics are used by the media, which in turn informs the public about the trends in the use of various police powers. Information on the statistics is also routinely to respond to Parliamentary Questions and Freedom of Information requests.

Policy making and monitoring – the statistics are used by policy areas to monitor the effectiveness of police powers to ensure they are being used fairly and effectively. They help identify which demographic of people are most subject to various police powers and monitor the use of different powers over time. The data is also used to inform discussion around the allocation of police resources.

Third parties – the statistics are used by a range of third parties from civil liberty groups to academics.

Informing public marketing campaigns – breath test statistics are used to measure the effectiveness of drink-drive campaigns by police forces.

Other statistical publications – the data feeds into a number of other statistical bulletins which are designed to monitor the effects of the criminal justice system on individual from various demographic backgrounds. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) produce 3 statistical bulletins which draw on the arrests and stop and search data published in this series. These are:

• Race and the criminal justice system
• Women and the criminal justice system
• Youth justice statistics

The Welsh Government also use the FPN and breath test data to publish their Motoring offences report.

Inspections and auditing – HMICFRS use the data when carrying out inspections on the way in which police forces use and record data on a number of police powers. Specifically the data has fed into a number of police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy (PEEL) inspections.

National and international comparisons – as well as allowing for comparisons between forces in England and Wales, when the data is used in conjunction with other datasets, comparisons may be made with other areas. In particular the Scottish Government and the Police Service of Northern Ireland publish a range of statistics relating crime and justice. Caution should be taken when making comparisons between datasets, as they may not be directly comparable due to differences with both what and how the data is collected.

3.2 Ongoing user engagement

A user survey for the Stop and search and arrests statistics was carried out in Spring 2022 to further understand the uses of the data, which parts of the statistics they engage most with (for example, the commentary, open data tables or summary data tables) and the easy of use of publication.

Findings from the survey showed that most people who accessed the statistics did so because they had an interest in policing in their local area.

In addition to the user survey, the Home Office continues to engage with key users of the statistics to ensure they continue to meet user needs. These users include policy and research officials and other government departments (such as the Ministry of Justice, Cabinet Office and Department for Transport). The Home Office also regularly works with data providers to ensure the data is fit-for-purpose and is put together in a way that suits user needs, for example, by holding workshops for police forces and actively engaging with the National Police Chiefs’ Council through their network of subject leads.

3.3 Feedback and enquiries

Feedback is always welcome on the future direction of the statistics. Any feedback or enquiries should be emailed to policingstatistics@homeoffice.gov.uk.

Press enquiries can be made to: 0300 123 3535

Home Office Responsible Statistician: Jodie Hargreaves, Head of Policing Statistics.

4. Glossary

Arrest – This refers to the power of police officers to deprive a person of his or her liberty in relation to the investigation and prevention of crime. Police officers have the power to arrest anyone who has committed an offence, is about to commit an offence, or is in the act of committing an offence. They also have the power of arrest when a person is suspected of involvement in an offence.

Breach of pre-charge bail - If an individual breaches their conditions of pre-charge bail, they can be arrested and taken to the police station. A breach of pre-charge bail conditions is not a criminal offence, although the breach action may be a separate offence.

Breath test – Test conducted by the police to determine whether motorists are driving with alcohol in their body, beyond the prescribed limit.

Burglary – When a person enters any building as a trespasser and with intent to commit an offence of theft, grievous bodily harm, or unlawful damage. Burglary does not necessarily involve forced entry; it may be through an open window, or by entering the property under false pretences (for example, impersonating an official). Burglary does not cover theft by a person who is entitled to be in the dwelling at the time of the offence. The dwelling is a house, flat or any connected outhouse or garage. Common areas (for example, hallways) are not included.

Calendar year – 12 months ending 31 December.

Caution – A caution may be given by the police when there is sufficient evidence for a conviction, and it is not considered to be in the public interest to instigate criminal proceedings. Offenders must admit guilt and consent to a caution in order for one to be given.

Charge – A formal accusation by the police that a person has committed a criminal offence.

Conviction – When a person is found guilty of an offence in a court.

Counting rules – Instructions issued to the police by the Home Office on how the police should count and classify crime. Figures on arrests in this publication are based on the counting rules that came into force on 1 April 1998. These rules were updated following the introduction on 1 April 2002 of the National Crime Recording Standard devised by Association of Chief Police Officers in collaboration with Home Office statisticians. The latest counting rules are available on GOV.UK.

Criminal damage – Criminal damage results from any person who without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another, intending to destroy or damage any such property or being reckless as to whether any such property would be destroyed or damaged.

Crown Court – The courts at which indictable offences are heard and triable-either-way offences may be heard.

Dangerous instruments – Defined in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 as instruments which have a blade or are sharply pointed.

Detention under PACE – Police officers have the power under PACE to detain suspected offenders for up to 36 hours. Police officers also have the power to detain persons for up to 96 hours if they apply to magistrates for a warrant of further detention.

Disparity - The difference between one value and another. In the context of stop and search, disparity is often used to refer to the difference the rate that white people are searched, compared with the rate at which people of a black, Asian, mixed or other ethnic background are searched. For example, if white people are searched at a rate of 6 per 1,000 people, and black people are searched at a rate of 54 per 1,000 people, the disparity between the 2 is calculated by dividing the latter value by the former (54 divided by 6) to give a disparity rate of 9, inferring that black people are stop and searched at a rate 9 times higher than white people.

Endorsable fixed penalty notice – See fixed penalty notice (FPN).

Financial year – 12 months ending 31 March.

Fixed penalty notice (FPN) – Offered to motorists to avoid prosecution for various motoring offences (for example speeding, neglect of traffic directions and using a mobile phone while driving) by paying a prescribed financial penalty. FPNs can be endorsable (accompanied by points on a driving licence) or non-endorsable (with no points added).

Fraud – For offences prior to 15 January 2007, fraud is defined as dishonestly deceiving to obtain either property or a pecuniary advantage. For offences after 15 January 2007, fraud is defined as dishonestly making a false representation to obtain property or money for themselves or another.

Going equipped – An offence under section 25 of the Theft Act 1968, in which a person is in possession of an article for use in the course of, or in connection with, a burglary or theft.

Government Office Region (GOR) – The primary classification for the presentation of regional statistics since 1996. GORs closed on 31 March 2011 but the regional level geography has been retained for statistical purposes. The former GORs are now simply referred to as ‘regions’. There are 9 regions in England: North East; North West; Yorkshire and the Humber; East Midlands; West Midlands; East of England; London; South East; South West. Tables in ‘Police powers and procedures’ also include a total for the police forces in Wales.

Indictable offence – These offences are the most serious breaches of criminal law and must be tried at the Crown Court.

Intimate search – Searches by police under PACE of a person’s body cavities when suspected of hiding drugs or offensive weapons upon their person. They may only be carried out if there are reasonable grounds for believing that a person who has been arrested and is detained may have concealed anything which could be used to cause physical injury; also, in the case of suspected couriers or dealers only, a Class A drug (as defined in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971). In the case of searches for drugs, a registered doctor or nurse can carry out the search. Searches for harmful articles are conducted by suitably qualified people. If this is not practicable, a constable will carry out the search.

Magistrates – Judicial officers at magistrates’ courts with limited law enforcement and administration authority.

Magistrates’ court – The lower level of court in England and Wales which deals with summary offences. A magistrates’ court is presided over by a tribunal consisting of 2 or more (most commonly 3) justices of the peace or by a district judge (formerly known as a stipendiary magistrate), and dispenses summary justice, under powers usually limited by statute. The maximum prison sentence that can be imposed at a magistrates’ court is 6 months.

Motor vehicle – The term motor vehicle in this bulletin means a mechanically propelled vehicle intended or adapted for use on roads and includes motorcycles, motor scooters, mechanically propelled invalid carriages, road rollers and tractors.

Non-endorsable fixed penalty notice – See fixed penalty notice (FPN).

Notifiable offences – Crimes which are recorded by the police that they are required to the Home Office. Also known as recorded crime.

Offender – A person found guilty or cautioned for breaking the law.

Other offences (offence group for arrests statistics) – Includes recorded crime offences not covered by the other arrest categories. Examples of offences included in the category are public order offences, immigration offences, public health offences and perverting the course of justice. For a full list of offences included in the category see counting rules.

Offensive weapon – Defined in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 as any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to persons (or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him or by some other person).

Out-of-court disposal - a range of options, such as cautions, community resolutions or cannabis and khat warnings, that are available to the police to use in certain cases as an alternative to a prosecution. An offender has to admit they are guilty of an offence to be issued with an out of court disposal and be eligible in terms of previous recorded offending.

PACE – Refers to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which instituted a legislative framework for the powers of police officers in England and Wales to combat crime, as well as providing codes of practice for the exercise of those powers.

Penalty Notice for Disorder (PND) – On-the-spot fines issued by the police for some minor offences: mostly disorder offences such as being drunk and disorderly, wasting police time and littering. Accepting a PND for an offence is not an admission of guilt and does not appear on a person’s criminal record.

PentiP – National system for the collection and reporting of data on fixed penalty notices.

Place of safety – Under section 135 and section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 a person can be removed to a “place of safety” by a police officer. A place of safety is typically a hospital or another health facility where mental health services are available. Under 135(6) of the 1983 Act a place of safety can also include residential accommodation provided by a local social services authority under Part III of the National Assistance Act 1948, a police station or any other suitable place the occupier of which is willing temporarily to receive the patient.

Population figures – Some of the tables and graphs in this release use population figures to calculate the number of arrests, searches and breath tests per 1,000 population. The population figures used are the latest mid-year population estimates provided by the Office for National Statistics.

Pre-charge bail – is granted by the police under PACE to individuals that have been arrested on suspicion of a criminal offence, but where there are no grounds to keep them in detention while the investigation continues.

Rate - Rates are calculated by dividing the number of events in an area by the resident population in that area. For example, if 1,000 stop and searches were undertaken in a year in an area with a resident population of 100,000, the annual stop and search rate would be 10 per 1,000 population.

Recorded crime – Police recorded crime covers crimes which are recorded by the police and which are notified to the Home Office. All indictable and triable-either-way offences are included together with certain closely associated summary offences. Attempts are also included. The latest recorded crime (notifiable offence) list is included in the counting rules on GOV.UK.

Released under Investigation (RUI) – When an individual is released from police custody under investigation whilst the investigation of the case continues. The individual is not subject to any conditions and there is no time limit for a suspect to return to the police station. The individual can be rearrested or invited for voluntary interview should new evidence come to light, or rearrested if they commit further offences.

Road check – The police power under PACE to block roads and search vehicles for persons suspected of intending to commit, committing, or witnessing an indictable offence, or who are unlawfully at large. The collection of road checks data was discontinued following the year ending March 2017 release of the bulletin.

Robbery – An incident or offence in which force or the threat of force is used either during or immediately prior to a theft or attempted theft.

Screening breath test – A preliminary breath test conducted at the roadside (or similar location).

Section 135 – Under section 135 a magistrate may issue a warrant, on application by a mental health professional, authorising a police officer to enter specific premises in respect of a mentally disordered person, believed to be in need of care or control, and to remove that person from those premises if necessary. Incidents are only recorded by the police under section 135 if an officer enters a private premise in execution of the warrant (including by force if necessary) and or removes the person from the premises to a place of safety in accordance with the terms of the warrant.

Section 136 – Under section 136 of the Act a police officer may remove a person from any place, other than a private dwelling, to a place of safety if, in the officer’s judgement, that person appears to be suffering from mental ill health and needs immediate care or control, in the interests of their safety or that of others. The maximum period for which a person can be detained at a place of safety under sections 135 or 136 is usually 24 hours, with the possibility of this period being extended by a further 12 hours in specific circumstances.

Serious Violence Reduction Order (SVRO) - Police officers have the power to stop and search a person subject to a (civil) order in a public place, to look for knives or offensive weapons. SVROs only apply to those aged 18 and over only. More information can be found here.

Sexual offences – Prior to May 2004 there were 15 separate offences included in the recorded crime sexual offences group including the offences of rape and indecent assault. The Sexual Offences Act 2003, which came into force in May 2004, introduced several new offences and repealed some of those which were previously in the series.

Stop and search – Statutory powers exist under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), Code A for a police officer to search a person or vehicle without first making an arrest. Other police powers not under PACE include stops and searches in anticipation of violence (under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994) and searches of pedestrians, vehicles, and occupants (under sections 44(1) and 44(2) of the Terrorism Act 2000). Searches for drugs are still permitted by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and those for firearms under the Firearms Act 1968. For the year ending March 2024, use of powers under section 342E of the Sentencing Act 2020 (which includes searches of people with a Serious Violence Reduction Order (SVRO)) and use of powers under section 11 of the Public Order Act 2023 (suspicion-less powers to search for items in connection with protest-related offences).

Summary offence – These offences can be heard at magistrates’ courts only and have a maximum penalty of 6 months’ imprisonment.

Triable-either-way offence – These offences may be tried either at the Crown Court or a magistrates’ court.

Use of force - A ‘use of force’ incident is defined as a situation in which a police officer uses any force tactics such as handcuffing or the use of a baton. For a full list see the stop and search section.

Vehicle Defect Rectification Scheme (VDRS) – Refers to the voluntary scheme introduced by police forces between 1982 and 1987, whereby police officers issue VDRS notices to motorists where a vehicle is found in a defective condition. Once the form is issued, the motorist must rectify the defect and submit the vehicle for inspection by an approved garage to avoid prosecution. The result of the inspection is endorsed on the form, which must be returned to the police within 14 days otherwise the motorist will be prosecuted. Alternatively, the driver must scrap the vehicle and produce evidence of this to the police to avoid prosecution. As explained in section 7, this collection was withdrawn in 2009.

Vehicle-only searches – Searches of unattended vehicles conducted by the police.

Violence against the person – Includes serious violent offences where the injury inflicted or intended is life threatening, and offences resulting in death, regardless of intent. The offence group also includes offences involving less serious injury. It also includes certain offences that involve no physical injury, and some involving serious intent.

Voluntary attendance - interview when an individual attends to assist the police with an investigation. An individual may be interviewed voluntarily under caution. If an individual voluntarily attends interview, they are allowed to leave unless arrested on suspicion of committing the offence.

Warrant of further detention – Where the police need to detain a person beyond 36 hours an application must be made at a magistrates’ court, which can issue a warrant of further detention up to 36 hours. Further extensions can be applied for, but any extension granted cannot exceed 36 hours or permit the total period of detention to exceed 96 hours.

5. Conventions and revisions

5.1 Rounding

Numbers are mainly provided unrounded in the data tables of the ‘Police powers and procedures’ release. This is to promote transparency and allow users to exploit the data further.

However, caution should be taken when comparing small differences between time periods; while care is taken in collecting and collating all the information obtained, the figures are subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large recording system and are not necessarily accurate to the last digit.

If data is published in a table in a rounded form, the footnotes to that table explain the reasons for doing this.

Percentages in the data tables are rounded to the nearest per cent.

Where data is rounded, it may not sum to the totals shown, or, in the case of percentages, to 100%, because it has been rounded independently.

5.2 Use of symbols

The following symbols have been used in the tables:

• [x] not available
• [z] not applicable

5.3 Calculating percentages

Due to the incomplete nature of many of the data sets included in these publications it is common that breakdowns include an “Unknown” category to reflect instances where no category has been recorded. When presenting proportions, these “Unknown” instances are typically excluded from total number and the percentages reported reflect the proportion of all cases where the category is known.

5.4 Revisions to data

Data for the latest full calendar year or financial year may be revised in due course. It is the authors’ standard practice to incorporate revisions for previous years in the latest release. Substantial revisions to figures presented in earlier editions of ‘Police powers and procedures’ are described in the ‘data interpretation and quality issues’ section for each topic.

The Home Office corrects and revises data in accordance with its statement of compliance with code of practice for official statistics.

6. Stop and search

Under sections 5, 50 and 55 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), there is a statutory requirement for chief police officers to collect and publish statistics monitoring their use. These provisions cover stops and searches of persons or vehicles, road checks, detention of persons, and intimate searches of persons.

Figures on stops and searches and resultant arrests reported to the Home Office reflect police activity and should not be used to infer levels of crime committed by offenders.

6.1 Content and coverage of data published

Content: The “Police powers and procedures: Stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions, England and Wales” annual statistics publication includes data covering stops and searches conducted by police under:

• section 1 of PACE and associated legislation (collectively referred to as section 1 of PACE)
• the associated legislation includes stop and search powers under section 47 of the Firearms Act 1968, section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, section 43 of the Terrorism Act 2000 as well as other legislation
• section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 in anticipation of violence
• section 342E of the Sentencing Act 2020 (searches of people with a Serious Violence Reduction Order) –the use of these powers are reported for the first time for the year ending March 2024
• section 11 of the Public Order Act 2023 (suspicion-less searches for items related to protest-related offences) - the use of these powers are reported for the first time for the year ending March 2024

Data is presented on a financial year basis, and includes:

• number of stops under each section of legislation
• reason for search
• outcomes of stop and search
• weapons found in a search
• whether outcomes are linked to initial reason for stop
• reason for arrest
• ethnicity, sex and age of people searched
• whether force was used
• new analysis on the level of clothing removal in stop and searches
• new analysis on whether body worn video was used during a stop and search
• new analysis on whether an outcome was linked by ethnic group

Coverage: Data has been collected since the year ending 31 March 2002 and includes the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales (as well as the British Transport Police from the year ending March 2010 onwards)

Designation: These statistics are designated Accredited Official Statistics (National Statistics). To reflect data quality issues which have been identified or new analysis introduced, some individual metrics are designated Official Statistics or Official Statistics in Development.

For example data on the reason for arrest following a stop and search was published for the first time for the year ending 31 March 2023 (provided in the stop and search summary data tables: police powers and procedures, year ending 31 March 2023, table SS_46). Further work is required to identify issues with and improve data quality and as such this data is designated as Official Statistics in Development (Experimental Statistics).

Due to known issues around the quality of stop and search link and outcome data, these statistics (provided in tables SSO_01 to SSO_11 of the stop and search outcomes summary data tables are designated as Official Statistics in development.

Further information on these issues can be found in the “Data interpretation and quality issues” section of this chapter.

6.2 Data interpretation and quality issues

Limitations of the outcomes data

One outcome per stop and search - For each stop and search, only the first outcome is recorded. For example, where a criminal sanction follows an arrest, only the arrest will be shown. Therefore, outcomes that follow an arrest (such as cautions) will be an under-count of the actual number of such outcomes. The data should therefore not be used to infer, for example, the total number of cautions that result from stop and searches.

Outcome linked to reason for stop and search - Forces must report on whether the outcome was linked to the initial reason for conducting the search. For example, police may stop someone on suspicion of carrying drugs. If cannabis is found during the search and the person is given a cannabis warning, then the outcome is linked to the reason for the search. However, if a weapon is found instead of cannabis and the person is arrested, the outcome is not linked to the initial reason for the search. Tracking whether or not the outcome is linked to the reason for the search allows a distinction between outcomes where the officer found what they were searching for, those where the item found was not what the officer was initially searching for, or where nothing was found.

Principal outcome following a stop and search - The data collected includes the initial outcome given following the search only. It should be noted that ‘no further action’ can include a wide range of scenarios. It is therefore possible that, in some cases, an outcome of ‘no further action’ could be given where the officer finds what they were looking for (outcome linked) but decides not to deal with it by means of arrest, cautions, community resolutions or another outcome. For example, a person could have a lawful reason for carrying an item which the officer might have been perceived as a weapon. Additionally, if a child has been used to carry a prohibited article for an adult, the carrier may be treated as a witness rather than have action taken against them. Lastly, if a person is found with weapons or drugs with the intent to harm themselves, the subjects may be treated in a supportive way rather than arrested.

Force comparisons - The findings presented in the main bulletin give a reasonable indication of the national level, but users should be wary of making force level comparisons.

While the outcome of each stop and search is relatively straightforward to record, the link between the reason for the search and the search outcome is more complex. In many forces, officers themselves assess whether a link is involved, and so there can be subjectivity involved. It is likely that different officers may classify whether there is a link or not in different ways.

Furthermore, a number of forces have started using mobile devices to allow officers to directly record stop and searches at the scene, as well as the outcome following a stop and search. Some forces have reported inconsistencies in the way officers use these devices, leading to difficulties when deciding whether the outcome of the search was linked to the reason for the search (for example, more than one outcome was recorded, or the officer had marked the outcome as “linked” to the reason for the search where it did not appear that the outcome was linked).

Given the known issues around the quality of stop and search link and outcome data, these statistics (provided in tables SSO_01 to SSO_11 of the stop and search outcomes summary data tables) are designated as Official Statistics in Development rather than Accredited Official Statistics (National Statistics).

Weapons found data

Different police forces may have different ways of recording the property found during a stop and search, and it may not always be clear whether an offensive weapon or firearm was found. For example, a record may state that a search was carried out for an offensive weapon, and that the outcome was related to the reason for the search, suggesting that an offensive weapon was found. However, the specific ‘property found’ part of the record may not mention an offensive weapon.

Alternatively, a record of search for an offensive weapon may include information that states a stolen or prohibited article was not found as the link between the reason for search and outcome, but have items that could be considered to be offensive weapons (such as surgical or construction equipment) within the details of property found.

Additionally, other Home Office statistical collections have highlighted the challenges of determining whether a knife or sharp incident was involved in a crime, particularly when reliant on officers to tag records with that information. Lastly, the data collected as part of the stop and search collection does not show whether multiple weapons were found in a single search. Therefore, the figures presented in the bulletin are estimates and should be used with caution.

Removal of clothing data

The Home Office have collected data on the extent of clothing removal during a stop and search for the first time, on a voluntary basis, in the year ending March 2024. Given the partial nature of the data presented for these statistics (29 out of 44 police forces provided this data), they have been labelled as ‘Official Statistics in development’ and any conclusions drawn should be done so with caution.

Digital recording versus paper records

Some are using handheld devices (for example, Airwave) to record stops and searches and this tends to reduce the risk of under-recording when compared with the use of paper records, for example. However, data inaccuracies may creep in if the handheld device data is not transferred electronically to the Home Office statistical returns.

Repeat stop and search

Information presented in the bulletin is based on the number of stop and searches. Information on person identification is also collected from police forces on a voluntary basis. A person ID should relate to a unique individual. The purpose of collecting this data is to understand the extent to which people are repeatedly stopped and searched. However, analysis of this data has shown that for a large proportion of records, person_ID is either missing or has not been recorded correctly (for example, it is clear from demographic information that the same person_ID has been used for different individuals). There are operational difficulties with recording this data, as when an individual is stopped and searched they are not required to provide personal information. Therefore it is not possible to accurately identify individuals who have repeatedly been stopped and searched.

Reason for arrest

Since April 2021, the Home Office has also collected data on reason for arrest. The aim of collecting this data is to understand how effectively the police are using stop and search powers, for example, if the reason for arrest is aligned with the reason for search it would be implied that this was a successful search. Data quality checks showed that some forces will by default provide the same reason for arrest as for reason for search or they record all reasons for arrest as other. For the first time this data has been presented in the summary tables as ‘experimental statistics’ to denote that there are known data quality issues.

Ethnicity groupings

During a stop and search, a suspect is asked to define their ethnicity. These are grouped into white, black (or black British), Asian (or Asian British), mixed ethnicity, other ethnic group and ethnicity not stated. Asian or Asian British group now includes people that identify as Chinese. Previously people who identify as Chinese were grouped as ‘Chinese or other’. Details on groupings are available at List of ethnic groups. Comparisons made for these groups between the year ending March 2020 and prior, including comparisons to the 2011 Census, should therefore be done so with caution.

Whether body worn video was used during the stop and search

Given the partial nature of the data presented in this section in the bulletin, these statistics are ‘Official Statistics in development’ and any conclusions drawn should be done so with caution.

In the year ending March 2024, police forces have started to provide voluntary data on whether the officer conducting a stop and search used their body worn video.

33 out of 44 police forces provided this data for the year ending March 2024.

Use of force

Since the year ending March 2023, police forces started to provide voluntary data on whether force was used during a stop and search. 36 of 44 police forces provided this data in the year ending March 2024.

Figures should be interpreted with caution, as they may reflect differences in recording standards between forces, and ability to link up stop and search records with use of force records, which may be held on different systems.

A ‘use of force’ incident is defined as a situation in which a police officer uses any of the following tactics:

Restraint tactics:

• handcuffing (compliant or non-compliant)
• limb or body restraints
• ground restraint

Unarmed skills:

• distraction strikes with hands and feet
• pressure point and joint locks

Use of other equipment:

• a baton (including where it was drawn but not used)
• irritant spray (including where it was drawn but not used)
• spit and bite guard
• shield (for example, person struck or pushed with a shield)

Less lethal weapons:

• Conducted Energy Device (CED), for example, TASER ® (including non-discharge uses)
• Attenuating Energy Projectile (AEP), (including where it was drawn but not used)

Firearms:

• use of conventional firearms (including where it was aimed but not fired)

Other:

• use of dogs (including where a dog was deployed but did not come into contact with, such as bite, the person)
• other improvised tactics

Calculating disparity rates

Since the year ending March 2021, the record-level data collection (where data is received for every stop and search incident), as well as the additional information received on the age and sex of those searched, has allowed analysts to consider new methods for calculating disparity rates between stop and searches of those from a black, Asian or other minority ethnic background compared with white people.

The different measures are:

Traditional measure: the traditional method based on self-defined ethnicity of people stopped and searched and the number of people within that ethnic group in the overall population (based on the 2011 Census for years up to March 2020 and 2021 Census for all years thereafter). Rates based on this measure are available for the year ending March 2011 through to the year ending March 2024.

Combined measure: same as above, but the officer-observed ethnicity of the person stopped and searched is used if their self-defined ethnicity was not stated. This approach is designed to reduce uncertainty in estimates based solely on self-defined ethnicity, due to missing data. Rates based on this measure are available for the last 3 reporting years as they rely on record-level data which was collected for the first time in the year ending March 2021.

Age and sex adjusted disparity: An expanded version of the combined measure, in which the stop and search and population data is split by age and sex, as well as ethnicity. Rates based on this measure are available for the last 3 reporting years.

For comparability with previous years, the main measure used in this release continues to be the ‘traditional measure’, where rates are calculated based on the self-defined ethnicity of those searched and the Census population estimates.

6.3 Supporting legislation and contextual information

Main stop and search categories

These statistics include stop and searches conducted under a number of different pieces of legislation. This section summarises each piece of legislation, what police can search for and the situation in which a search can occur

Suspicion-led powers

Legislation: Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act 1984, s1
What police can search for: Stolen property; going equipped to steal; offensive weapons, including bladed or sharply pointed articles; other items, including prohibited possession of fireworks; criminal damage (articles made, adapted or intended for use by destroying or damaging property) . Section 10 of the Public Order Act expands powers under s1 PACE for officers to carry out a suspicion-led search for items related to protest activity.
Who, what and where the police can search: Persons and vehicles; where there is public access

Legislation: Firearms Act 1968, s47
What police can search for: Firearms
Who, what and where the police can search: Persons and vehicles, in a public place (or anywhere in the case of reasonable suspicion of offences of carrying firearms with criminal intent or trespassing with firearms)

Legislation: Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, s23
What police can search for: Controlled drugs
Who, what and where the police can search: Persons and vehicles; anywhere

Legislation: Terrorism Act 2000, s43
What police can search for: Articles which could be used for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, allowed only where an officer has reasonable suspicion of terrorism-related activity. [Included in the ‘other’ category within s1 PACE stop and search data tables]
Who, what and where the police can search: Persons and vehicles; anywhere

Suspicion-less powers

Legislation: Section 60 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, as amended by s8 of the Knives Act 1997
What police can search for: Offensive weapons or dangerous instruments to prevent incidents of serious violence or to deal with the carrying of such items
Who, what and where the police can search: Persons and vehicles; anywhere within an authorised locality

Legislation: Sentencing Act 2020, Section 342E
What police can search for: Offensive weapons or dangerous instruments to prevent incidents of serious violence or to deal with the carrying of such items
Who, what and where the police can search: Persons 18 and over with a serious violence reduction order

Legislation: Public Order Act 2023, Section 11
What police can search for: Items in connection with protest related offences
Who, what and where the police can search: Persons and vehicles; anywhere within an authorised locality

Legislation: Terrorism Act 2000, s47A (which replaced s44(1,2) from February 2011)
What police can search for: Articles which could be used for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, without reasonable suspicion of terrorism-related activity
Who, what and where the police can search: Persons; anywhere within an area authorised by the Home Secretary (further information here) A fuller list of stop and search powers appears in Annex A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 code of practice document PACE code A.

Stop and search powers under the Terrorism Act 2000

The Home Secretary announced on 26 January 2011 the findings from the review of counter-terrorism and security powers. One of the recommendations of the review was that stop and search powers under sections 44 to 47 of the Terrorism Act 2000 should be repealed and replaced with a much more limited power.

This recommendation was based on the Government’s commitments to introduce safeguards against the misuse of terrorism legislation, and in order to bring the powers into line with the European Convention of Human Rights, following the European Court of Human Rights ruling in the case of Gillan and Quinton v United Kingdom. The recommendation was implemented by provisions in the Protection of Freedoms Bill, introduced to Parliament on 11 February 2011.

The review also recommended that consideration be given to whether the new counter-terrorism stop and search powers should be available more quickly than the Protection of Freedoms Bill would allow. On 1 March 2011 the Home Secretary announced that she had concluded that the police did need the powers more quickly than the Bill would allow.

The Home Secretary therefore made a remedial order under section 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 to make immediate changes to the legislation. The new powers contained in that order were supported by a robust statutory Code of Practice. The remedial order came into force on 18 March 2011, replacing sections 44 to 47 of the Terrorism Act 2000 with a more targeted and proportionate power, making a temporary provision while the Protection of Freedoms Bill was taken through Parliament.

Section 47A (as amended by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012) and Schedule 6B of the Terrorism Act 2000 introduced replacement stop and search provisions. An authorisation for the use of the new stop and search powers can only be given under section 47A where the person giving it reasonably suspects an act of terrorism will take place and considers the powers are necessary to prevent such an act. An authorisation can last for no longer and cover no greater an area than is necessary to prevent such an act. This represents a significantly higher threshold for giving an authorisation than the “expediency” test under section 44 of the 2000 Act.

Best use of stop and search

The Best use of stop and search scheme was launched on 30 April 2014. This required forces to comply with a number of conditions such as recording a broader range of stop and whether there is a connection between the grounds for the search and the outcome. The aims of the scheme were to:

• achieve greater transparency around how stop and search is used
• improve community engagement and involvement in the use of stop and search powers
• develop a more intelligence-led approach to the use of stop and search
• encourage accountability in the police use of stop and search powers

Forces that did not meet the requirements faced the risk of being suspended from the scheme.

Collecting this richer data provided the public with greater insight into the effectiveness of forces’ use of stop and search powers.

Data on the Best Use of Stop and Search (BUSS) Scheme were collected on a voluntary basis for the first time in the year ending March 2016. In the year ending March 2018, all forces in England and Wales were signed up to the scheme and provided data. The outcomes data has now become a routine part of the stop and search collection and therefore the term BUSS is no longer used in the commentary.

6.4 Other data sources

Whilst some ethnic breakdowns are provided in this bulletin for the first time, detailed figures and analysis will continue to be published by the Ministry of Justice as part of its annual publication Statistics on Race in the Criminal Justice System.

Figures for recorded crime are available on the GOV.UK website.

Quarterly figures for stops and searches under the Terrorism Act 2000 (including data relating to searches by the Metropolitan Police Service under section 43 of the Terrorism Act 2000) appear in the Home Office statistical release Operation of police powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 and subsequent legislation: arrests, outcomes and stops and searches. Users should note that there is some minor variation in the figures reported between the ‘Police Powers and Procedures: Stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions’ release and those in the Operation of Police Powers under the Terrorism Act (TACT) statistical release for the Metropolitan Police Service’s use of section 43 powers. Differences between the two sources can in part be explained by the difference in the date of data extraction and updates made to records following each release, with those reported in the TACT release superseding those reported in the Police Powers and Procedures release.

During data quality checks for the year ending March 2023 Police Powers and Procedures publication, analysts from the Home Office and the MPS identified that a small number of searches had been incorrectly recorded under section 47a legislation. As agreed with the MPS, these searches were reclassified as section 43 searches for the Police Powers and Procedures publication. However, following publication, the MPS further reclassified some of these searches under a different search type and these were subsequently revised in the TACT publication.

Analysts from the two Home Office teams and analysts from the MPS are working together to ensure the two releases are better aligned and will revise figures in future releases. The slight discrepancy in the number of section 43 searches has negligible impact on the trends reported in the bulletins.

7. Arrests

7.1 Content and coverage of data published

Content: The “Police powers and procedures: Stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions, England and Wales” annual statistics publication includes data covering:

• number of arrests for notifiable offences
• reason for which persons were arrested
• ethnicity, sex and age of those arrested

The arrests figures relate to arrests for notifiable offences only, which form the basis of recorded crime statistics.

Coverage: Data includes the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales (and does not included arrests carried out by the British Transport Police.

Designation: These statistics are designated Accredited Official Statistics (National Statistics).

7.2 Use of the data

The key users of arrest statistics are the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Youth Justice Board (YJB), both of which present data collated from various government departments and agencies in statistical publications looking at race, women and young people and the criminal justice system. Within the Home Office, the statistics are used by a range of policy advisers, social researchers and economists in order to inform policy and operational decisions by ministers.

7.3 Data interpretation and quality issues

Comparisons with crime data

Figures on arrests reported to the Home Office reflect police activity and should not be used to infer levels of crime committed by offenders, or their specific characteristics. Furthermore, not all arrests result in a crime being recorded. Figures for recorded crime are available on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) website.

Direct comparisons between the 2 series should be made with caution since arrests relate to persons and recorded crime relates to offences. For example, one offence may be committed by multiple offenders and therefore may generate several arrests. Conversely an offender may be arrested for committing 2 or more recorded crimes (for example, shoplifting and possession of drugs) but only one arrest will be recorded. In addition, some offences can be resolved without the use of an arrest, for example through the issuing of a fixed penalty notice or cannabis warning. Finally, some crimes take longer to investigate than others and therefore arrests and charges may lag trends in recorded crime.

Changes to offence categories

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) amended the offence categories of the police recorded crime series in the year ending March 2013. For this reason, the year ending March 2016 data on the reason for arrest, is not directly comparable with earlier years. The below lists the new offence categories and gives an indication as to how comparable data is to previous years’ data.

Criminal damage and arson: Mostly comparable with the year ending March 2015 and earlier.

Drug offences: Directly comparable with the year ending March 2015 and earlier.

Fraud offences: Not comparable with the year ending March 2015 and earlier.

Misc. crimes against society: Not comparable with the year ending March 2015 and earlier.

Possession of weapons offences: Not comparable with the year ending March 2015 and earlier.

Public order offences: Not comparable with the year ending March 2015 and earlier.

Robbery: Directly comparable with the year ending March 2015 and earlier.

Sexual offences: Mostly comparable with the year ending March 2015 and earlier.

Theft offences: Not comparable with the year ending March 2015 and earlier.

Violence against the person: Not comparable with the year ending March 2015 and earlier.

Digital recording vs paper records

There is a risk of under-recording of arrests, as forces are less likely to use automated recording systems such as handheld devices to record arrests than they would for other measures in this release such as stops and searches, fixed penalty notices and breath tests. Manual processes sometimes increase the risk of under-recording.

Recording offence type

Where a person has been arrested for one or more notifiable offence on the same occasion, forces are asked to record the arrest against the offence with the highest maximum penalty (the primary arrest).

Kent, North Yorkshire, North Wales, and Devon and Cornwall police forces have only been able to identify primary arrests since the following dates:

• Kent – November 2018
• North Yorkshire – April 2020
• North Wales – April 2020
• Devon and Cornwall – April 2022

Prior to these dates they counted every offence as a separate arrest.

In the year ending March 2024, Derbyshire changed from using the offence with the highest Crime Harm Index to using the ‘primary offence’ flagged on the arrest record. Therefore, their offence breakdown may not be fully comparable to previous years.

Cambridgeshire had only considered the first offence where a person had been arrested for multiple offences prior to the year ending March 2022, and Gloucestershire only considered the offence flagged on their recording system as a “main” offence prior to the year ending March 2023. They therefore had not reported arrests where the first or “main” offence was non-notifiable and a second offence was notifiable.

Prior to the year ending March 2023, Leicestershire Police were not able to identify all notifiable offences. Arrests prior to that date may have been under-reported.

In the years ending March 2023 and March 2024, Lancashire has stated there may be some under-reporting of the number of arrests due to issues with linking arrests to offence type.

Prior to the year ending March 2023, Avon and Somerset were counting some arrests under multiple offence groups, and therefore over-reporting the number of arrests.

In this collection, an arrest is counted for each occasion a person is arrested, provided that the arrest is for an offence which is not related to an offence for which the person has already been subject to arrest during the same year. However, some forces are not able to link separate arrests for connected offences if a new arrest record was created for the second arrest. Therefore, there may be some instances in the dataset where arrests for connected offences may be counted more than once.

Missing data

The Home Office requests data from the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales on arrests made during the financial year. Devon and Cornwall were not able to supply data for the year ending March 2023 bulletin due to a transition to a new data management system, therefore their data was estimated. However, following the completion of the transition, they have been able to supply data retrospectively for that year, therefore their data for the year ending March 2023 in the March 2024 publication is their actual data. Their number of arrests for that year has been revised down from 14,919 to 14,174. Furthermore, Lancashire Constabulary were not able to provide data between the years ending March 2017 to March 2019, also due to a migration to a new record management system. Therefore, to ensure comparability with previous years, Lancashire’s data has been estimated for each of these years. The estimates have been calculated by inflating their data from the previous financial year in line with the overall percentage change for England and Wales. Proportions of category breakdowns have been kept the same between years.

7.4 Other sources of the data

Further detail and analysis of gender issues are published by the Ministry of Justice as part of their Women and the Criminal Justice System series. Similarly the Ministry of Justice publish further analysis of ethnicity data as a part of their Ethnicity and the Criminal Justice System series. ## 8. Detentions under the Mental Health Act 1983

Police forces in England and Wales regularly interact with people experiencing mental ill health. Sometimes these interactions may result in the need to remove a person from where they are, and take them to a place of safety, under section 135 or 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983.

8.1 Content and coverage of data published

Content: The “Police powers and procedures: Stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions, England and Wales” annual statistics publication includes data presented on a financial year basis covering:

• the number of people detained by police under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983
• the number of detentions under section 136 by age, sex and ethnicity of the person detained
• the number of detentions under section 136 by place of safety (including if applicable the reason for use of police custody)
• the number of detentions under section 136 by method of transportation used (including, where applicable, the reason for using a police vehicle)
• the number of people detained by police under section 156 of the Mental Health Act 1983

Coverage: These statistics include data a subset from the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales and the British Transport Police since the year ending 31 March 2016. Not all forces have been able to provide data each year. The British Transport Police do not use powers under section 135 of the Mental Health Act.

Designation: Statistics covering section 136 mental health detentions are designated Accredited Official Statistics (National Statistics).

Due to the incomplete nature (see section 11.2) of statistics covering section 135 mental health detentions, these are designated as Official Statistics in Development (experimental statistics).

8.2 Data collection

Following concerns raised about the quality and transparency of police data in this area, at the Policing and Mental Health Summit in October 2014 the then Home Secretary announced that the Home Office would work with the police to develop a new data collection covering the volume and characteristics of detentions under sections 135 and 136. Previously, data on the total number of section 136 detentions was collected and published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).

In the year ending 31 March 2016, the Home Office piloted this new data collection on a voluntary basis, and a response was received from 15 forces. This data was published in an Annex to the Police powers and procedures, year to March 2016 statistical release. Each subsequent year more forces provided data on detentions under section 136. For the year ending March 2024 all forces provided data.

Data on detentions under section 135 of the Act has been less complete with some forces mentioning quality concerns with their data, including partial returns. For the year ending March 2024, only 34 forces returned data although many of these returns still have data quality issues.

Due to the provisional and incomplete nature of data on detentions under section 135 of the Act, these statistics have been designated as ‘Official statistics in Development’, to acknowledge that further development will take place in the coming future. The Home Office is working with forces to understand the issues they face with this data collection, and will consider whether any changes to the data return requirement are needed.

Changes to the data collection

In the year ending March 2024, following consultation with stakeholders, some changes were made to the data collection. These changes only apply to the section 136 collection, apart from the change to ‘Ambulance not available within 30 minutes’ which also applies to section 135.

Guidance for recording A&E as a place of safety was changed. Previously, if the individual was taken to A&E for treatment of physical injuries, we asked the force to record the place of safety they were taken to following A&E. However, under legislation A&E can be a place of safety if that is determined to be the most appropriate place of safety, for example if a person has self-harmed but also needs a mental health assessment. Under the previous ADR guidance, the extent to which A&E was being used as a place of safety was therefore largely unknown. , Current guidance advises that if someone is initially taken to A&E for treatment of physical injuries, A&E should be recorded as the place of safety. As a result of this, place of safety data for the year ending March 2024 is not comparable with previous years.

‘Other’ was removed as an option for method of transportation. However, in the year ending March 2023, the Other category was only used for 0.7% (242) of cases, therefore the data are still mostly comparable with previous years.

‘Other’ was added as a new category for ‘Reason police vehicle used’. Additionally, ‘Ambulance not available within 30 minutes’ has been amended to ‘Ambulance not available within agreed timeframe’. This is because many forces have a different time frame than 30 minutes as their agreed timeframe (e.g. some forces use 60 minutes).

The categories for ‘Reason a police station was used as place of safety’ have been changed. A new requirement was also added to the collection to break this data down by age group (‘over 18’ and ‘17 or under’). However, the age breakdown has not been presented in this bulletin since police custody was not used as a place of safety for a child aged 17 or under in the year ending March 2024.

8.3 Data interpretation and quality issues

Recording the ethnicity of persons detained under the Mental Health Act Both self-defined ethnicity and officer-observed ethnicity (the person’s ethnicity as judged by the police officer) are collected as part of the Annual Data Requirement (ADR). However, due to the nature and circumstances of a detention under the Mental Health Act it may not be appropriate for an officer to ask for a person’s self-defined ethnicity, therefore some police forces only collect officer-observed ethnicity.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) currently only records the officer-observed ethnicity of those detained under the Mental Health Act. Since the MPS make up a particularly large proportion of section 135 detentions, proportions of detentions of people where self-defined ethnicity is known are lower for section 135 than for section 136.

Where self-defined ethnicity is not recorded by a force but officer-observed ethnicity is available, a combined approach has been taken (where specified) in the statistical bulletin in order to present a more complete picture of the ethnicity of persons detained under section 136 and 135 of the Mental Health Act.

8.4 Supporting legislation and contextual information

Section 135 of the Mental Health Act 1983

Under section 135 a magistrate may issue a warrant, on application by a mental health professional, authorising a police officer to enter specific premises in respect of a mentally disordered person, believed to be in need of care or control, and to remove that person from those premises if necessary. Incidents are only recorded by the police under section 135 if an officer enters a private premise in execution of the warrant (including by force if necessary) and or removes the person from the premises to a place of safety in accordance with the terms of the warrant. Therefore, incidents where an officer attends a private premise in response to ad hoc requests for assistance, or other reasons, but does not execute either part of a section 135 warrant are not recorded in this data set.

Section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983

Under section 136 of the Act a police officer may remove a person from any place, other than a private dwelling, to a place of safety if, in the officer’s judgement, that person appears to be suffering from mental ill health and needs immediate care or control, in the interests of their safety or that of others. The maximum period for which a person can be detained at a place of safety under sections 135 or 136 is usually 24 hours, with the possibility of this period being extended by a further 12 hours in specific circumstances.

Right care right person

In December 2022, Chief Constables for England and Wales voted to adopt the Right Care, Right Person (RCRP) approach. RCRP was an initiative developed by Humberside Constabulary. RCRP provides that when the police receive a call seeking the deployment of police resource, which concerns mental health or some other types of health and social care issues, officers will be deployed if (in line with the police’s legal duties) a crime has been or might be committed, or to protect people from a real and immediate risk to life or serious harm. The approach is designed to ensure that people of all ages, who have health and/or social care needs, are responded to by the right person, with the right skills, training, and experience to best meet those needs. The approach does not overwrite the independence of Chief Constables and their discretion to deploy in response to other types of call. This approach has started to be implemented by police forces in England and Wales.

8.5 Other data sources

As part of its annual Mental Health Bulletin, NHS Digital (formerly the Health and Social Care Information Centre) publishes data on inpatients detained in hospitals in England under the Mental Health Act 1983. Although the Home Office figures will include some cases where the police initially detained the individual, they will also include a large number of other cases where the police were not involved.

9. Fixed penalty notices (FPNs) and other outcomes for motoring offences

9.1 Content and coverage of data published

Content: The “Police powers and procedures: Other PACE Powers, England and Wales” annual statistics publication includes data is presented on a calendar year basis covering:

• the number of endorsable and non-endorsable FPNs (see glossary) issued for a range of motoring offences (by offence type)
• the number of FPNs issued as a result of camera-detected offences
• the number of FPNs where the penalty was paid
• the number of motoring offences that resulted in a driver retraining course, or court action

Coverage: These statistics include data from the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales since 2011.

In addition to police officers, police employed traffic wardens have the power to issue FPNs for parking offences. These notices are included in the release; however, it should be stressed that as most traffic wardens are now employed by local authorities, their activities are not covered here.

Designation: These statistics are designated Accredited Official Statistics (National Statistics).

9.2 Data collection

The PentiP system

Data is collected by the Home Office directly from the PentiP fixed penalty processing system.

The Vehicle Procedures and Fixed Penalty Office (VPFPO) system had been used by police forces in England and Wales to process FPNs for a number of years.

Following a mandate from the police, a requirement to replace VPFPO with a national fixed penalty processing system – PentiP – was developed, and the contract was awarded to Northgate in 2009. Roll-out to all police forces in England and Wales commenced in June 2012 and was completed by the end of June 2013.

PentiP enables the police to update a central database with details of all FPNs issued and conduct searches to check such things as: the details of a driver and vehicle; whether a driver has been disqualified; whether a driver is eligible for a Speed Awareness or Driver Improvement Scheme Course; or whether a person has a previous cannabis warning.

Driver retraining and court action

In 2016, the Home Office widened the scope of the dataset for fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for motoring offences to include cases where a driver retraining course, such as a speed awareness course, was attended by the individual, as well as cases where an individual faced court action. However, information on the outcome of those summoned to court is not provided and therefore data do not contain the number of individuals prosecuted for motoring offences.

Vehicle Defect Rectification Scheme (VDRS)

The police, in the interests of road safety, can prosecute drivers for using a defective vehicle on the road. To avoid unnecessary prosecutions, the Vehicle Defect Rectification Scheme (VDRS) was introduced in 1986 to ensure that faults on vehicles are rectified and suitable for use on public roads.

Statistics on Vehicle Defect Rectification Scheme (VDRS) notices and written warnings for motoring offences no longer appear in this release as they were withdrawn as National statistics from 2009. This withdrawal implements a recommendation review by David Normington, former Home Office Permanent Secretary, on ‘Reducing the Data Burden on Police Forces in England and Wales’ and was approved by the National Statistician following a public consultation under National statistics procedures.

9.3 Data interpretation and quality issues

Data not included on PentiP

The Home Office is aware that not all forces will exclusively use the PentiP system to record motoring offences. For example, several police forces including North Wales, South Wales, Gwent, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire do not record all outcomes of motoring offences on the PentiP system. Therefore, it is likely that the data published is not a complete record of all motoring offences that occur in England and Wales and is potentially an undercount.

In 2020 the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) adopted a new system for recording fixed penalty notices for camera-detected motoring offences. As MPS no longer exclusively use the PentiP system, the data collected from the MPS is recorded under different categories and is not directly comparable to other forces’ data. For 2021 an interim solution was found to incorporate the MPS data into the national figures, however following data quality assurance of the 2022 data it was decided that the MPS data should remain separate. For this reason, analysis in this chapter excludes the MPS. However, data provided by the MPS from their new FPN system (Dome) and from the PentiP system is reported separately in section 4.6. The Home Office is working with the Metropolitan Police Service to obtain fully comparable data.

9.4 Supporting legislation and contextual information

More information about the process of issuing FPNs for motoring offences, including the penalty levels, are shown in the guidance issued by the Crown Prosecution Service.

9.5 Other data sources

Information on court proceedings for motoring offences are dealt with by the Ministry of Justice and published in Criminal Statistics England and Wales.

The Department for Transport (DfT) publishes a number of Road Accident and Safety Statistics including data on:

• road casualties
• drink and drug driving
• self-reported mobile phone use while driving

Non-motoring fixed penalty notices

In addition to FPNs for motoring offences, police officers can also issue FPNs for minor disorder offences under the Penalty Notice for Disorder (PND) scheme. Offences covered under the scheme include: causing harassment; being ‘drunk and disorderly’ or consuming alcohol in a designated public place or highway; retail theft or shoplifting (value under £200); possessing cannabis; and fireworks offences.

The most recent information on the number of PNDs issued is published in the MoJ publication, Criminal Statistics England and Wales.

10. Breath tests

10.1 Content and coverage of data published

Content: The “Police powers and procedures: Other PACE Powers, England and Wales” annual statistics publication includes data presented on a calendar year basis covering:

• the number of alcohol screening breath tests carried out by police
• the number of breath tests that were positive or refused
• the number of total and positive or refused breath tests by month (seasonal trends in breath tests)
• the number of total and positive or refused breath tests per 1,000 population

Coverage: These statistics include data from the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales since 2002.

The publication includes data on the use of police powers to conduct screening breath tests at the roadside (or similar location) to determine whether motorists are driving with alcohol in their body beyond the prescribed limit. The data presented does not cover the administering of evidential alcohol breath tests (for example those taking place at a police station following an arrest).

Designation: These statistics are designated Accredited Official Statistics (National Statistics).

10.2 Data interpretation and quality issues

Introduction of new digital recording equipment

From April 2008 police forces across England and Wales progressively began using new digital recording equipment in place of traditional breath testing screening devices. Unlike previous devices, the new equipment is able to record and report the specific quantity of any alcohol present in a person’s system at the roadside, the reason for the test, the age and gender of the person being tested and the date and time it was carried out. The results are downloaded from police force data systems on a monthly basis and provided to the Department for Transport (DfT) on a voluntary basis.

The DfT’s collection of breath screening tests includes only those which were undertaken using the new digital testing devices.

The introduction of the digital devices is likely to have resulted in improved data recording by many forces. Negative breath tests (suggesting motorists are not driving with alcohol in their body) may previously have been under-reported but the proportion of tests that are refused or resulted in positive readings have decreased since the beginning of 2008.

Missing and partially complete data

Not all of the 43 territorial police forces have been able to provide data (or have provided partially complete data) for certain years. The notes pages of the summary tables accompanying the publication includes further details of missing or incomplete data. Where partial data has been provided (such as data excluding certain months), estimates have been used based on historic trends and monthly distributions.

For example in the year 2022, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) were not able to provide the number of positive or refused breath tests for the months January to June. Data supplied by the MPS for the months of July to December has therefore been used along with the previous 5 years of data to estimate these months.

In some cases, where no breath tests data was provided at all, reliable estimates have not been possible. For example, between 2017 and 2022 the MPS were not able to provide any data on the total number of breath tests (and just provided data on the number of positive or refused test).

Caution should therefore be taken when comparing between years. Forces who have not been able to provide any data for certain years have been excluded from the time series analysis presented in table bt_03 of the summary data tables accompanying the statistics.

Tests carried out in neighbouring forces

Officers from neighbouring forces may occasionally carry out breath tests in territory covered by other forces. In such cases, use of a digital testing device will be recorded against the force who owns the equipment. It is not always possible to identify which force actually conducted the breath test.

Tests per 1,000 population

Using ONS mid-year population estimates, these statistics include the number of breath tests per 1,000 population per year for each Police Force Area (PFA). Caution should be taken when interpreting these statistics as not all drivers will undergo breath testing in their Police Force Area of residence. This has particular impact in areas with large daily or seasonal visiting populations. City of London is excluded from analysis involving population rates due to the small resident population of the area relative to the transient or visiting population

10.3 Supporting legislation and contextual information

Under the Road Traffic Act 1988, the police can require a person to take a screening breath test if they have a reasonable cause to suspect that the person:

• is or has been driving or attempting to drive or is in charge of a motor vehicle on a road or other public place with alcohol in their body (section 6(2) and 6(3))
• has committed a moving traffic offence (section 6(4))
• has been involved in an accident (section 6(5))

The subsequent evidential test carried out at the police station can be submitted as evidence in court. The prescribed alcohol limit is 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100 ml of breath, which equates with 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 ml of blood. It is an offence to refuse to take a breath test when required to do so by a police officer unless there is a reasonable excuse. Court penalties for refusing an evidential test are the same as being above the prescribed limit.

10.4 Other data sources

Analysis of reported roadside breath alcohol screening tests, based on data from digital breath testing devices, is published by the Department for Transport (DfT) in its road accidents and safety statistics, along with figures on drink-drive accidents and casualties in Great Britain.

11. Police custody and other PACE powers – detentions over 24 hours, intimate searches

Under sections 5, 50 and 55 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), there is a statutory requirement for chief police officers to collect and publish statistics monitoring their use. These provisions cover stops and searches of persons or vehicles (see section 5), road checks, detention of persons, and intimate searches of persons.

11.1 Content and coverage of data published

Content: The “Police powers and procedures: Other PACE Powers, England and Wales” annual statistics publication includes data presented on a financial year basis covering:

• the number of detentions in police custody by age-group, sex, and ethnicity of persons detained and all offences linked to the custody record (including notifiable and non-notifiable offences)
• whether a child was detained in custody overnight (including pre-charge or post charge)
• whether an appropriate adult was called (where applicable) and the time taken for the appropriate adult to arrive
• whether a detained adult was declared vulnerable
• number of strip searches carried out and the age, sex, and ethnicity of persons strip searched
• the number of persons detained by police in England and Wales under part IV of Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act for more than 24 hours and subsequently released without charge
• the number of intimate searches made under section 55 of PACE

Coverage: Data on the number of persons detained by police under part IV of PACE for more than 24 hours and intimate searches made under section 55 of PACE has been collected since the year ending 31 March 2002. Further data on detentions and strip searches carried out in custody has been collected since the year ending 31 March 2022.

These statistics include data from the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales. Following the creation of the new policy custody collection from 2022 onwards a subset of forces have not been able to supply full data returns each year.

Unlike the arrests collection, the custody collection includes both notifiable and non-notifiable offences (see glossary).

Designation: Statistics on detentions over 24 hours under part IV of PACE and intimate searches made under section 55 of PACE are designated Accredited Official Statistics (National Statistics). All other custody and strip search data is designated Official Statistics in Development (Experimental Statistics) to reflect ongoing work to expand the scope and completeness of this data and improve data quality.

11.2 Uses of the data

It is important that both the Government and the public can fully understand those in police custody and the way that police powers are used. The custody data collection was introduced in the year ending March 2022 to increase transparency and bring detention related issues to the public’s attention.

A key users of these statistics are Home Office policy advisors, who use them in order to inform policy and operational decisions by ministers.

The collection was developed alongside police forces in England and Wales, a number of stakeholders such as the Independent Custody Visiting Association, and views from national documents including:

• Dame Elish Angiolini’s report into deaths and serious incidents in police custody
• His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Service custody expectations document
• “Good Police Custody” research produced by Dr. Layla Skinns and Dr. Angela Sorsby

Figures on police detention over 24 hours and subsequently released without charge have been reported to the Home Office since the year ending March 2002 for the purpose of monitoring whether police forces are using their powers of further detention appropriately, rather than to ascertain charging rates. As a result, no figures are collected on the number of persons charged after being held for less than 36 hours with no warrant applied for.

Figures on persons held for more than 36 hours under warrant are collected. This is because such persons can be held in police custody for up to 96 hours and it is important to monitor charging rates when persons are held for extended periods of time.

11.3 Data interpretation and quality issues

Vulnerable adults data

Data is collected on the number of adults detained who have been considered vulnerable. A person may be considered vulnerable if they:

• have difficulty understanding the full implications or significance or things they are told or questions they are asked
• have difficulty communicating effectively about anything to do with their detention
• are particularly prone to confusion or suggestibility

Analysis of the vulnerable adults data shows substantial differences in the proportions of adults detained in custody who were recorded as vulnerable across Police Force Areas. For example, in the year ending 31 March 2023, this proportion ranged from 1% of all adults detained to 63% by police force. This has been identified as owing to varying recording practices between forces, where forces have used different definitions and methodologies for reporting vulnerability for this data collection.

Caution should therefore be taken when interpreting these figures. The Home Office will work closely with police forces to better understand how vulnerability is recorded and the impact of this on analysis.

The number of unique individuals in custody and strip searched.

Since the year ending 31 March 2023, analysis has been included on the number of unique individuals in custody. A person ID is assigned to individuals when a custody record is created. This person ID is then carried between custody records where the same person has been detained multiple times.

Where an individual has been detained (or strip searched) multiple times by a single police force within the year, they are counted once. Since the person IDs supplied in this data collection are unique to each police force, if one individual has been detained on multiples occasions by different forces, each time will still be counted separately. Not all forces have been able to provide a unique person ID for all cases. In addition to analysing the number of unique individuals in custody, this person ID also allows analysis of the number of people who have been detained or strip searched multiple times in a single financial year. Only detentions that occurred in each financial year are included in this analysis. This data should therefore not be used to infer the number of repeat detentions or strip searches in any rolling 365 day period. For example if an individual is detained in March 2022 and released before being detained again in April 2022, although these detentions occurred within 1 month of one another, as they occurred in different financial years this would not be captured within our statistics as an individual with multiple detentions.

Changes to overnight detentions definition

Forces are asked to report whether any children kept in custody were detained overnight.

Since the year ending 31 March 2023, for the purposes of this data collection, the definition of overnight means they must have spent a minimum of 4 hours in custody and that at least part of this period in custody must be between 12:00am and 08:00am. The definition in this data collection has been agreed with the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

This definition has been changed from that used for the year ending March 2022 data collection (the person detained spent at least 4 hours in custody and at least part of that time was between 12:00am to 04:00am) therefore comparison cannot be made between these years. This change has been made to better align with the approach taken by forces in the response to FOIs.

Police detentions over 24 hours and charges after detention

Tables in the “Police powers and procedures: Other PACE powers data tables” show the periods for which the warrants of further detention were granted, including any extensions. Twenty years’ worth of figures are shown in the longer-term trend tables. These totals should not be used to make direct comparisons as figures are not available for all police forces over time (see table notes).

Figures on police detention are reported to the Home Office for the purposes of monitoring whether police forces are using their powers of further detention appropriately, rather than to ascertain charging rates. As a result, no figures on the number of persons charged after being held for less than 36 hours with no warrant applied for are collected.

Figures on charging rates when a person is held for more than 36 hours under warrant are collected because, in these instances, persons can be held in police custody for up to 96 hours and it is important to monitor charging rates when persons are held for extended periods of time.

Incomplete police detentions over 24 hours data

Whilst the police detentions over 24 hours data has been supplied since the financial year ending March 2002, not all forces have been able to provide complete data each year, typically due to changes with custody reporting systems. Comparisons between years should therefore be made with caution. Known missing data includes:

• City of London (years ending March 2004 to 2005)
• Cheshire (years ending March 2008 to March 2012, March 2015 to 2019 and partial data is included for the years ending March 2021 to 2023)
• Cleveland (years ending March 2011 and March 2020)
• Derbyshire (year ending March 2021)
• Devon and Cornwall (year ending 2023)
• Dorset (years ending March 2010, March 2012 and March 2016 to 2019)
• Durham (years ending March 2017 to 2022)
• Gloucestershire (years ending March 2018 to 2023)
• Greater Manchester (years ending March 2020 to 2023)
• Gwent (years ending March 2004 to 2006)
• Hampshire (years ending March 2009 to 2011 and March 2013)
• Kent (year ending March 2019)
• Leicestershire (years ending March 2004 to 2005 and March 2016 to 2018)
• Lincolnshire (years ending March 2008, March 2013 to 2019 whilst partial data is included for the year ending March 2020)
• Metropolitan Police Service (years ending March 2008 and March 2023)
• Nottinghamshire (years ending March 2004 tp 2005 and March 2008)
• North Wales (years ending March 2009 and March 2019 to 2022)
• South Wales (years ending March 2007 to 2009 and March 2011)
• Staffordshire (year ending March 2008)
• Thames Valley (years ending March 2013 to 2023)
• Warwickshire (year ending March 2018)
• Wiltshire (years ending March 2011 to 2013 and March 2016 to 2017)
• West Midlands (years ending March 2009 to 2011 and March 2013
• West Mercia (year ending March 2018)

11.4 Supporting legislation and contextual information

Appropriate Adults

Public concern over the Maxwell Confait murder case in 1972 led Parliament, via a Royal Commission, to pass the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) and its Codes of Practice. PACE sets out the rules and safeguards for policing in England and Wales including role of the appropriate adult (AA).

The principal intention of the appropriate adult safeguard was to reduce the risk of miscarriages of justice as a result of evidence being obtained from children and vulnerable persons which, by virtue of their age and/or vulnerability, could lead to unsafe and unjust convictions. The role of the appropriate adult therefore is to safeguard the rights, entitlements and welfare of children and vulnerable persons to whom the Codes of Practice apply. Under PACE Code C, the police must secure an appropriate adult as soon as is practicable if, at any time, an officer has any reason to suspect that the person is either a child or is vulnerable. The appropriate adult is a mandatory procedural safeguard imposed on police and, unlike legal advice, is not waivable by the person suspected of an offence.

The ‘appropriate adult’ means, in the case of a child aged 17 and under:

• the parent, guardian or, if the child is in the care of a local authority or voluntary organisation, a person representing that authority or organisation
• a social worker of a local authority
• if these are not available then some other responsible adult aged 18 or over who is not: a police officer, employed by the police or under the direction or control of the chief officer of a police force, or a person who provides services

Pre-charge detention of children

Officers must work in accordance with the College of Policing Authorised Professional Practice and take into account the age of a child or young person when deciding whether any of the PACE Code G statutory grounds for arrest apply. They should pay particular regard to the timing of any necessary arrests of children and young people and ensure that they are detained for no longer than needed in accordance with PACE Code C, paragraph 1.1 (all persons in custody must be dealt with expeditiously and released as soon as the need for detention no longer applies).

Reviewing inspectors and custody officers should ensure that the provisions of PACE have been strictly applied to avoid keeping children and young people in police custody any longer than necessary, both pre- and post-charge.

Post-charge detention of children

Under s38 Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 the detention of a child (who has not been arrested on a warrant or for breach of bail) after charge at a police station is permissible where it is impracticable for them to be released or where the child has attained the age of 12 years and no secure accommodation is available and that keeping him in other local authority accommodation would not be adequate to protect the public from serious harm from him. If either of the above conditions are not met the arrested child must be moved to local authority accommodation. The Government published the ‘Concordat on Children in Custody’ in 2017 which clearly sets out the statutory duties of the police and local authorities and provides a protocol for how transfers of children from custody to local authority accommodation should work in practice. The Concordat recognises that different agencies must work in partnership to ensure that legal duties are met. A diverse group of agencies has contributed to its development, acknowledging the fact that a child’s journey from arrest to court is overseen by a variety of professionals with varying duties.

Strip searches

Section 54 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) permits a person to be searched if the custody officer considers it necessary to enable him to carry out his duty in ascertaining everything that the arrested person has with him and to the extent that the custody officer considers necessary for this purpose. Clothes and personal effects may only be seized if the custody officer believes that the person from whom they are seized may use them to cause physical injury to himself or any other person; to damage property; to interfere with evidence; or to assist him to escape.

The officer can search the detainee (excluding intrusion into a body orifice except for the mouth) and their property with them whilst in police custody. A strip search in police custody is a search involving the removal of more than outer clothing (including shoes and socks). A strip search may take place only if it is considered necessary to remove an article which a detainee would not be allowed to keep and the officer reasonably considers the detainee might have concealed such an article. Conduct of these searches is covered by Code C of PACE. Strip searches shall not be routinely carried out if there is no reason to consider that articles are concealed.

The reasons and extent for a s54 PACE search of a detainee will be based on the principle of ensuring that police custody is a safe and secure environment for everyone and the need to secure and preserve evidence. The extent of such a search would be determined by such matters as the offence for which the detainee has been arrested, intelligence known about the detainee (this could include admissions), their behaviour amongst other factors so that justification can be provided.

The conduct of strip searches (including safeguards for children and vulnerable persons)

When strip searches are conducted:

(a) a police officer carrying out a strip search must be the same sex as the detainee;

(b) the search shall take place in an area where the detainee cannot be seen by anyone who does not need to be present, nor by a member of the opposite sex except an appropriate adult who has been specifically requested by the detainee;

(c) except in cases of urgency, where there is risk of serious harm to the detainee or to others, whenever a strip search involves exposure of intimate body parts, there must be at least 2 people present other than the detainee, and if the search is of a child or vulnerable person, one of the people must be the appropriate adult. Except in urgent cases as above, a search of a child may take place in the absence of the appropriate adult only if the child signifies in the presence of the appropriate adult that they do not want the appropriate adult to be present during the search and the appropriate adult agrees. A record shall be made of the child’s decision and signed by the appropriate adult. The presence of more than 2 people, other than an appropriate adult, shall be permitted only in the most exceptional circumstances;

(d) the search shall be conducted with proper regard to the dignity, sensitivity and vulnerability of the detainee in these circumstances, including in particular, their health, hygiene and welfare needs. Every reasonable effort shall be made to secure the detainee’s co-operation, maintain their dignity and minimise embarrassment. Detainees who are searched shall not normally be required to remove all their clothes at the same time, for example, a person should be allowed to remove clothing above the waist and redress before removing further clothing;

(e) if necessary to assist the search, the detainee may be required to hold their arms in the air or to stand with their legs apart and bend forward so a visual examination may be made of the genital and anal areas provided no physical contact is made with any body orifice;

(f) if articles are found, the detainee shall be asked to hand them over. If articles are found within any body orifice other than the mouth, and the detainee refuses to hand them over, their removal would constitute an intimate search, which therefore must be carried out in accordance with the requirements of an intimate search;

(g) a strip search shall be conducted as quickly as possible, and the detainee allowed to dress as soon as the procedure is complete.

Even though a strip search is not classified as an intimate search (which consists of the physical examination of a person’s body orifices other than the mouth) the search may still involve the exposure of intimate parts of the body which may or may not be body orifices.

Police detention over 24 hours

Under section 42 of PACE, detention in police custody before charge on the authority of a police officer is normally limited to 24 hours except where the alleged offence is an indictable one, where the maximum is 36 hours. The current powers enable a superintendent or above to authorise continued detention for up to 36 hours for all indictable offences. Additionally, the police can apply to magistrates for warrants of further detention, extending the maximum detention period to 96 hours.

Intimate searches

Intimate searches involve a physical search of the body orifices, and therefore exclude strip searches. They may only be carried out if there are reasonable grounds for believing that a person who has been arrested and is detained may have concealed anything which could be used to cause physical injury; or, in the case of suspected couriers or dealers only, a Class A drug (as defined in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971). In the case of searches for drugs, a registered doctor or nurse can carry out the search. Searches for harmful articles are by suitably qualified persons, unless this is not practicable when a constable will carry out the search.

12. Pre-charge bail, released under investigation and voluntary attendance

Pre-charge bail, also known as police bail, is granted by the police under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) to individuals that have been arrested on suspicion of a criminal offence, but there is insufficient evidence to charge and there are no grounds to keep them in detention while the investigation continues.

12.1 Content and coverage of data published

Content: The ‘Police powers and procedures’ statistical publication contains figures on the number of individuals released on:

• number of individuals released on pre-charge bail following an arrest
• number of individuals released under investigation following an arrest
• number of individuals released who breached pre-charge bail following an arrest
• number of individuals who voluntarily attended interview
• the offence types linked to a pre-charge bail, released under investigation, or voluntary attendance of interview
• the outcome and length of pre-charge bail, released under investigation, or voluntary attendance of interview
• ethnicity, gender, and age of individuals released on pre-charge bail, released under investigation, who breached pre-charge bail, and who voluntarily attended interview
• all data is published on a financial year basis

The data collected on numbers of pre-charge bails, RUI, and voluntary attendance is intended to capture those which have concluded within the financial year and is therefore not an indication of cases which are still live or ongoing. This publication does not include data on post-charge or court bail

Coverage: Data is requested from the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales, however not all forces have been able to provide data. The data therefore represents a subset of these forces.

Designation: Some of these forces identified quality concerns with their data, including partial returns. Therefore, data provided in the bulletin gives an indicative picture only, and should be treated with caution. Due to the provisional and incomplete nature of this dataset, these statistics have been designated as ‘Official Statistics in Development’ (Experimental Statistics), to acknowledge that further development will take place in the future.

The Home Office continue to work with forces to understand the issues they face with this data collection and will consider whether any changes to the data return are needed.

12.2 Data collection

From April 2017 the Home Office has requested information on a voluntary basis from police forces on the number of individuals released on pre-charge bail following an arrest, broken down by bail length. This became mandatory for the year ending March 2019.

In response to requests for more granular data from users, and in line with ‘V4:Innovation and Improvement’ of the Code of Practice (CoP) for Statistics, for the year ending March 2021, the Home Office expanded the pre-charge bail collection from aggregate-level data to incident-level data so that as well as bail duration the Home Office would receive information on age, gender, ethnicity, offence type and outcome for each instance of bail. The collection was also expanded to include information on released under investigation, breaches of pre-charge bail and voluntary attendance to an interview. This is the second year that this data has been collected, but the information collected was done so on a voluntary basis. Once the data is deemed to be of high enough quality this collection will move to a mandatory collection.

As part of the initial consultation process prior to the year ending March 2021 publication, several forces were asked about the feasibility of making such a change and the proposal to move to recording each incident of pre-charge bail was made to the Policing Data Requirement Group, who approved the change. This group is made up of stakeholders including national policing leads and considers the ‘need of the data against the reporting burden to forces’ for all collections along with reviewing the quality of the data collected. Increasing the amount of available information not only adds to the insights and analysis possible with more data but also increases value and transparency for users (‘V1: Relevance to Users’ of the CoP).

For the year ending March 2023, analysis is based on data received from 41 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales. However, whilst 40 forces provided data on pre-charge bail, a subset of 30 police forces provided data on RUI. 23 police forces provided data on voluntary attendance to interview, and 21 police forces provided data on breaches of pre-charge bail conditions.

12.3 Uses of the data

The key users of this data are the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Youth Justice Board (YJB), who use the data to review and monitor trends across the entire criminal justice system. Within the Home Office, the statistics are used by a range of policy advisers in order to inform policy and operational decisions by ministers.

12.4 Data interpretation and quality issues

Duration

Some forces had difficulty extracting data on the length of release on pre-charge bail, RUI and voluntary attendance of interview and expressed concerns about data quality. Forces are asked to provide duration as length of time the bail clock is active but there are inconsistencies in how time has been calculated across forces. For example, some forces used the time between the pre-charge bail or RUI first being granted and the end of the last period of pre-charge bail or RUI, other forces provided the number of days between a record being created and when the record was closed or last updated. These methods do not always show the actual date that pre-charge bail or RUI ended, as officers do not always systematically close the records and assign outcomes on the actual closed date. This means the time may include when the bail clock was not active for example, it may include time spent with the Crown Prosecution Service.

Furthermore, many forces expressed difficulty identifying instances where an individual had moved from pre-charge bail to RUI and vice versa. This can result in inaccurate lengths of time. For example, if an individual was placed on pre-charge bail for 10 days and then moved to RUI for 20 days the records associated with the individual may only be shown under RUI, with a length of 30 days.

As such, the data on duration should be treated with caution and the inconsistencies between method of calculation means the data is not directly comparable across forces.

Age

The Home Office asks forces to provide the age of an individual at the time of arrest or first attendance of voluntary interview. Despite this, it is likely there is variation in how age has been calculated. For instance, a force may use the time an individual was placed on bail, RUI, or breached pre-charge bail conditions. This method of calculation is unlikely to produce largely different ages, but the data should be treated with caution and the inconsistencies in calculation mean the data is not directly comparable across forces.

Offence

The Home Office asked forces to provide data on all offences associated with an individual released on pre-charge bail, RUI, voluntary attendance to interview, or breach of pre-charge bail conditions. Given the novelty of the collection there is a variation in what police forces provided. Whilst many forces provided all offences associated with a pre-charge bail or RUI record, 9 forces that provided offence information were only able to provide the principal offence (such as the most serious offence), or the first offence associated with the individual’s record. Very few forces could provide all offences associated with voluntary attendance to interview records or records of breach of pre-charge bail conditions. This does not guarantee that it is the offence for which the individual was released on pre-charge bail, RUI, or voluntarily interviewed. Moreover, some forces were not able to determine the offence type linked to a breach of bail, due to the pre-charge bail breaches being recorded on a separate system to the original pre-charge bail record.

Outcome

Police forces were asked to provide the outcome of all offences associated with pre-charge bail, released under investigation, and voluntary interview records. However, there are several quality concerns with the data. Firstly, forces may categorise the outcomes in different ways and as such may not be comparable across forces. Secondly, the data suggests that most forces are only providing one outcome which is likely related to one of the offences on the record, likely the principal or first offence recorded. As such, outcome data for certain categories after ‘charged’ will be an undercount of the actual number of such outcomes.

Thirdly, many forces expressed difficulty with identifying when an instance of pre-charge bail is transferred to RUI and vice versa. As such, the count for ‘transfer to pre-charge bail’ and ‘transfer to RUI’ are likely to be an undercount. Furthermore, several forces stated they are not able to see if a bail is converted to an RUI or vice versa. Instead, they can only identify the very final outcome in an individual’s journey. As such, in the pre-charge bail data, there are likely some outcomes which reflect the outcome of the RUI the person was converted to and vice versa. This also means the count of persons on pre-charge bail and RUI should be used with caution.

Finally, several forces expressed general difficulty with extracting the outcome of a pre-charge bail, released under investigation or voluntary interview record from their systems. Consequently, this data is incomplete and given the issues mentioned above, should be treated with caution.

Breaches of pre-charge bail conditions

Breach of pre-charge bail conditions is not a notifiable offence. As such, several forces reported that they do not formally record breaches in a retrievable format, or that it is held on a separate system. This means data on breaches of pre-charge bail conditions is likely to be an undercount and for several forces the data only reflects instances where an individual is arrested for breach of pre-charge bail conditions.

Recording of voluntary attendance to interview

Many forces stated that there is no system in place to record voluntary interviews that do not occur within a police station (such as, prison or home). As such, the total number of voluntary interviews are not likely to be inaccurate and the breakdown of location of voluntary interviews should be treated with caution as it may not reflect the locations of all interviews that occur.

Additionally, some forces expressed difficulty in identifying whether there are duplicates in their data as they did not have enough detail on records to determine if an individual was interviewed again or whether the record is duplicated in their system.

Furthermore, several forces reported that they may interview multiple separate individuals several times in connection with a single offence under one custody record. Whilst the Home Office publishes figures related to the total number of individuals who voluntarily attended interview, due to the incomplete nature of the data provided it is not possible for the Home Office to confidently determine whether all individuals listed under the same custody record are the same individuals being interviewed multiple times.

Comparing with arrests data

Direct comparisons between the volume of pre-charge bails or persons released under investigation and Home Office arrests data should be made with caution since pre-charge bails can relate to multiple offences, whilst arrests relate to the principal offence. For example, an offender may be arrested for committing 2 or more crimes (such as shoplifting and possession of drugs) but only one arrest and offence will be recorded. Within the pre-charge bail dataset, in this example both offences would be recorded and linked to the individual on pre-charge bail. Furthermore, if someone was arrested for example in the year ending March 2022 and put under pre-charge bail conditions which came to an end in the following financial year, the individual would be recorded in a different financial year within the pre-charge bail dataset.

12.5 Supporting legislation and contextual information

Pre-charge bail, also known as police bail, is granted by the police under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) to individuals that have been arrested on suspicion of a criminal offence, but where there are no grounds to keep them in detention while the investigation continues. The main purposes of pre-charge bail are:

• the protection of victims and witnesses primarily linked to conditions applied to pre-charge bail such as no contact with the alleged victim
• investigative management, allowing investigations to progress to obtain evidence
• suspect management, including reducing the risk of offending

Applying pre-charge bail conditions means that the police can manage a suspect effectively within the community while further investigations progress. Pre-charge bail can be made subject to conditions under the Bail Act 1976. Conditions may be necessary in order to make sure that the suspect:

• surrenders to custody at the end of the pre-charge bail period
• does not commit an offence while on pre-charge bail
• does not interfere with witnesses
• does not otherwise obstruct the course of justice

Conditions may typically include:

• a ban on leaving the country, including a requirement to surrender a passport
• not being allowed to enter a certain area, such as the home of the alleged victim
• not being allowed to communicate with certain people, for example, victims, witnesses or known associates

If an individual breaches their conditions of pre-charge bail, they can be arrested and taken to a police station. Under PACE, the police have power of arrest where an officer has reasonable grounds for believing that conditions imposed on pre-charge bail have been breached. A breach of pre-charge bail conditions is not a criminal offence and carries no criminal penalty, although the behaviour which led to the breach may amount to a separate offence. If there is sufficient evidence at the time of the breach, officers may charge the individual for the original offence for which they are under investigation, or any later offence, and either detain them before their appearance at a magistrates’ court or release them on post-charge bail.

Following an arrest for a notifiable offence, an alternative route to pre-charge bail is to release the suspect from police custody under investigation whilst the investigation continues. Unlike pre-charge bail, suspects “released under investigation” (RUI) are not subject to any conditions, nor is there a time limit on when they must return to the police station. A police force may also ask a person of interest to voluntarily attend a police station or other location to assist police with the investigation of an offence. They will be interviewed voluntarily under caution, as opposed to being arrested and then interviewed. The purpose of these interviews is to question the individual for evidence about their suspected involvement in an offence. If an individual voluntarily attends interview, they are allowed to leave unless arrested on suspicion of committing the offence.

Recent changes to the pre-charge bail system

The pre-charge bail system was reformed through the Policing and Crime Act 2017 to address concerns that individuals were being kept on pre-charge bail for long periods. This act introduced the presumption that suspects should be released under investigation (RUI), unless pre-charge bail is deemed both necessary and proportionate. Stricter controls on bail periods were also introduced, including the introduction of a limit on pre-charge bail to an initial period of 28 days as well as raised authority levels to extend this pre-charge bail period.

The pre-charge bail system has since been further reformed through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, implemented on 28 October 2022. This Act seeks to rebalance the use of pre-charge bail and release under investigation in order to encourage greater use of pre-charge bail in every case where it is necessary and proportionate. As individuals released under investigation (RUI) are not subject to any conditions, nor is there a time limit on when they must return to the police station, these changes have been introduced to provide greater protection for both victims and suspects of crime.

The Act also made changes to the timescales and authorisation levels for periods of bail, including extending the initial applicable bail period (see glossary) from 28 days to 3 months. Further information on these changes and applicable bail periods is included in the pre-charge bail statutory guidance.

13. Other data sources

In addition to the other related data sources listed in the respective chapter for each topic the following statistics are published elsewhere by the Home Office and MoJ on a selection of other police powers and procedures, some of which are listed below.

Offenders cautioned

The MoJ collects figures on numbers of offenders cautioned as part of its cautions and convictions series. The statistics cover all criminal offences, not just those included in the recorded crime statistics.

Statistics are published annually in the National statistics publication Criminal statistics, England and Wales, which contains breakdowns by offence group, age and sex of offender and police force area. The cautions figures include simple and conditional cautions, and reprimands and final warnings (used for offenders aged 10 to 17). Separate figures for reprimands and final warnings are also available.

Offences resolved by means of a caution

Up to and including the financial year ending March 2013, the Home Office’s main statistical collection on recorded crime included offences detected by method of detection. Unlike the offenders cautioned statistics which cover all offences, this collection covered notifiable offences only, which means that most summary offences were excluded. Statistics were published in the annual National statistics publication Crimes detected in England and Wales, which included breakdowns by offence type, detection method (including cautions) and police force area.

A consultation was launched in October 2012 seeking views of key partners and directly affected parties to a revised detection framework, with a summary of consultation responses and conclusions published in March 2013. The Home Office amended its statistical collection in April 2013, reflecting the proposals of the revised framework. ‘Crime outcomes in England and Wales’ is published quarterly on the Crime statistics pages of GOV.UK.

Police use of firearms

The Home Office publishes annual Official Statistics on police use of firearms from the 43 Home Office police forces in England and Wales. It details the total number of:

• police firearms operations, including operations involving armed response vehicles (ARVs)
• incidents in which police firearms were intentionally discharged at person(s)
• Authorised Firearms Officers (AFO)

Police use of force statistics

These statistics cover incidents where police officers have used force and includes: the tactics used, the reason for force, the outcome, any injuries (to the officers and or the subject) and subject information (age, gender, ethnicity and disability, as perceived by the reporting officer).

From April 2017, all police forces in the UK have been required to record this data. The use of force data collection is intended to hold police forces to account and to provide the public with greater information on the different types of force used and the context in which this occurs.

Statistics on police use of CED (such as TASER®) were previously collected on a calendar year basis by the Home Office until 2016 (inclusive). These statistics, for the years 2009 to 2016, can be found at ‘Police use of TASER ® X26 conducted energy devices statistics’ on GOV.UK. From April 2017, conducted energy devices (CED) data has been collected on a financial year basis (April to March), for inclusion in the police use of force statistical collection. The new figures for CED use from 2017 to 2018 onwards are not comparable with previous figures, due to the new recording methods. More information is available in the ‘User guide to Police use of force statistics, England and Wales’.

Football-related arrests

Statistics on football-related arrests, as well as numbers of banning orders issued, are published by the Home Office each autumn on the GOV.UK website. These statistics are not Accredited Official Statistics (National Statistics).

Firearm certificates

The Home Office publishes Accredited Official Statistics (National Statistics) on the issue of firearm and shotgun certificates by the police, as well as the number of firearms dealers registered by the police. The annual releases are available online on the Firearm certificates in England and Wales statistics pages of GOV.UK.