BJS: Bureau of Justice Statistics

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Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
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Police-Public Contacts
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The nature and extent of contact between police officers and residents varies by whether the contact was initiated by the police or by the resident. These contacts occur for many reasons: police provide services to community members, residents seek information or report crimes to police officers, residents are passengers or drivers during a traffic stop, police could make arrests, search residents, their vehicles or their homes, and officers could use or threaten use of physical force.

BJS measures the nature and extent of these contacts by surveying individuals in a nationally representative sample of households. Unlike other measures of police behavior, this survey is based on the reported experiences and perspectives of surveyed residents. It does not require the participation of law enforcement agencies or officers and it captures behavior from many jurisdictions and throughout the entire year.

Summary findings

  • An estimated 40 million U.S. residents age 16 or older, or about 17% of the population, had a face-to-face contact with a police officer in 2008. This is a continuing decrease in contact between police and the public, down from 19% of residents who had contact with the police in 2005 and 21% who had contact in 2002.

     
  • Among persons who had face-to-face contact with police during 2008, about 1 out of 4 experienced contact more than once during the year.

     
  • In 2008, nearly 67 million encounters occurred between the police and the 40 million persons who had contact during that year, with an average of 1.7 face-to-face contacts per resident.

     
  • Of persons who had contact with the police in 2008, about 9 out of 10 felt the officer or officers behaved properly.

     
  • The most common reason for contact with police in 2008 was being a driver in a traffic stop, accounting for about 44% of all contacts. The second most frequent reason for contact with police was to report a crime or problem.

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