Non-fatal assaults on police officers in the USA, 1993-2021

Injury-provoking violence is an important concern among police officers, and it influences their decisions about using force in their encounters with civilians. We sought to estimate the occurrence and trends in non-fatal assaults on police officers in the USA.

We estimated rates and frequencies of assaults directed against working police officers during four periods: 1993-1999, 2000-2005, 2007-2015 and 2016-2021. The data were from the US National Crime Victimization Survey.

Police reported annual average criminal attack rates of 796.3 per 1000 officers during 1993-1999, falling to 87.5 per 1000 during 2016-2021. Civilians reported much lower rates of 62.4 per 1000 persons and 19.3 per 1000 persons during these periods. Most assaultive violence directed against police officers (78%) consisted of simple assaults and these became a larger part of total violence over time. A majority (70%) of attacks on police-and especially of simple assaults-involved similar repeated offences. Criminal assaults overall declined during the study period, but the reductions were greater for the police (89%) than for civilians (69%).

While remaining elevated, US police officers experienced large decreases in assaultive violence between 1993 and 2021. Police victimisation patterns differed from those for civilians, falling more steeply and more often involving minor harm. While calling for additional research, these results suggest that further improvements in police safety might help create conditions favourable to less frequent use of force against civilians.