Annual deaths during or following police contact statistics

Police forces have a statutory duty to refer all incidents involving a death or serious injury to us. Each year, we publish statistics on the nature and circumstances of deaths during or following police contact. These provide an insight into actions needed in order to prevent them from being repeated in the future.

We have published these statistics annually for over fifteen years, and collecting this data provides a definitive set of figures for England and Wales. The UK Statistics Authority has designated these statistics as National Statistics in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. 

Our previous deaths statistics reports are available on our National Archives site. If you wish to leave any feedback relating to the annual death report, please complete this short survey or if you have any questions, contact our research team.

The publication of the 2022/23 annual statistical report on deaths during or following police contact was published on 28 July 2023. The report presents figures on deaths that occurred between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023.