Number of fatal police shootings England and Wales 2004-2023
In 2022/23, the police in England and Wales fatally shot three people, compared with two in the previous reporting year, and six in 2016/17. During the same reporting year, the police used firearms a total of ten times, compared with 13 incidents in 2018/19. In general, the police in England and Wales and the rest of the UK do not have a tradition of carrying firearms, with the country having some of the strictest gun laws in the world. In 2022/23, out of around 135,500 police officers, just 6,038 were licensed to carry firearms in England and Wales.
Comparisons with the United States
Among developed economies, the United States is something of an outlier when it comes to police shootings. In 2023, it is estimated that the police in the United States fatally shot 1,163 people. There are also significant disparities based on a person's ethnicity. Between 2015 and March 2024, the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was six per one million people, 2.7 per million people for Hispanic Americans and 2.4 per million people for white Americans. Gun violence overall is also far more prevalent in the United States, with 42 percent of American households owning a firearm as of 2023.
Gun homicides rare in England and Wales
Of the 602 homicides that took place in England and Wales in 2022/23, just 29 were committed by a person using a firearm. By far the most common method of killing was using a knife or other sharp instrument, at 244 homicides, or around 41,4 percent of them. Compared with twenty years ago, homicides in England and Wales have declined; there were 1,047 in 2002/03. After that reporting year, homicides fell significantly, to a low of just 533 in 2014/15, but this trend reversed, and by 2016/17, there were more than 700 homicides recorded. Although there have been some fluctuations, particularly during 2020/21 at the height of COVID-19 lockdowns, the number of homicides has generally remained at these levels in the years since.
