How Many People Had Contact With Police in 2018?

About 61.5 million people age 16 or older had at least one contact with police in 2018. That is the main finding of a survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the research arm of the U.S. Justice Department. The results show how often people deal with police, and how differently those encounters can go depending on who you are.

About the survey

The Police-Public Contact Survey (PPCS) is an add-on to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The NCVS tracks crime victims across the country and the most common crimes each year. The PPCS asks only about contact with police. BJS released the 2018 results in December 2020.

The survey counts two kinds of contact:

• Resident-initiated contact. You reach out to police, for example to report a crime or an emergency.

• Police-initiated contact. Police reach out to you, for example in a traffic stop or an arrest. Traffic accidents also count.

Key findings

Of the 61.5 million people who had contact with police in 2018, 28.9 million had police-initiated contact and 35.5 million reached out to police first. Another 8.9 million had contact because of a traffic accident.

Among people age 16 or older in the 12 months before the 2018 survey:

• About 61.5 million people had at least one contact with police.

• 24% had contact with police, up from 21% in 2015.

• White residents (26%) were more likely than Black (21%), Hispanic (19%), or other-race (20%) residents to have contact with police.

• The difference between White (12%) and Black (11%) residents who had police-initiated contact was not statistically significant.

• People ages 18 to 24 were the most likely to have any contact with police (30%) and police-initiated contact (19%).

• A higher share of Black (4%) and Hispanic (3%) residents than White (2%) or other-race (2%) residents faced threats or use of force.

• Men (3%) were more likely than women (1%) to face threats or use of force.

• 4% of Black and 4% of Hispanic residents said they were handcuffed during their most recent contact with police, compared to 2% of White and 2% of other-race residents.

How the survey was done

The PPCS is done about once every three years. The original version of this article reported that it is conducted by telephone. Data collection ran from July 1 to December 31, 2018. Questions covered what type of police contact the person had, what happened, and how recently it happened.

People who had more than one contact answered about their most recent one.

The number of people who answered rose 47% in 2018. That was because the NCVS had expanded so it could estimate crime at the state and local level, which gave both surveys a larger sample. The overall response rate for the PPCS was 53.7%.

Why it matters

The survey shows how often people deal with police and how those contacts differ by race, age, and sex. Black and Hispanic residents were not more likely to have contact with police overall. But when they did, they were more likely to face force or be handcuffed. Given the events of 2020, it will be worth watching whether later surveys show higher numbers.

In our view, the most important finding is the mistreatment of minority groups at the hands of law enforcement. It is more proof that the country needs to reform its criminal justice system. If more is not done soon, these numbers will keep climbing.

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