How many stop and searches do police carry out?

The Home Office "Police powers and procedures" statistics report the number of stop and searches each year by force, legal power, ethnicity and outcome, including arrests. Street-level stop and search records are also on data.police.uk.

Rates per 1,000 people by ethnic group are calculated using census population figures, so they move when new census data is used.

Official sources: Police powers and procedures · data.police.uk

The latest figure

The newest value is at Office for National Statistics (ONS), using Home Office police recorded crime. More on it: Knife crime offences (England and Wales).

When is the next figure out?

Quarterly in the ONS Crime in England and Wales bulletin; the year ending March 2026 figures were published on 23 July 2026 and the next bulletin is due on 22 October 2026. Force-level figures are in the police force area data tables

Every official release due in the next two weeks is on the release calendar.

Terms used in this answer

• Rate per 100,000
  The number of events divided by the population and multiplied by 100,000, so areas of different sizes can be compared on a like-for-like basis.
• Administrative data
  Information collected by organisations while running a service, such as tax records, benefit claims or hospital activity, and then used to produce statistics.
• England and Wales
  A single legal jurisdiction, so crime, courts, prisons and death registration statistics are often published for England and Wales together.
• Year-on-year change
  The change between a figure for one period and the same period twelve months earlier, such as March this year compared with March last year.

Where the figures come from

• Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) and Northern Ireland departmental statistics
  A guide to NISRA and Northern Ireland official statistics: population, census, NICEI, jobs, waiting times, PSNI crime and house prices.
• Find Case Law, legislation.gov.uk, the Sentencing Council and UK court records
  How to search UK court judgments on Find Case Law, check if a law is in force on legislation.gov.uk, and read sentencing, tribunal and CPS data.
• Defence, foreign aid and counter-terrorism statistics (MOD, FCDO, NATO, OECD, Home Office)
  Where to find official UK defence spending, armed forces numbers, NATO comparisons, foreign aid (ODA), arms export licences and terrorism statistics.

Related questions

• How many police officers are there in England and Wales?
• What is the UK prison population?
• Where can I find official crime statistics?

This answer says where the official figures are published and how they are defined. It gives no verdict on any claim. To report an error, send a correction request. More questions about crime, police, prisons and courts: all Crime, police, prisons and courts questions.