Project software provides standardized local agency tracking and reporting of officers, subjects, demographics, complaints, incidents and outcomes of force-related events. Unlike other attempts to develop information on the patterns and practices of police use of force, the IACP Use of Force Project is designed specifically to establish a nationally representative statistical baseline of the various levels of police force, force-related complaints, and complaint outcomes throughout the United States.
Local agency reporting anonymity is assured through procedural and technical safeguards.
Background Public Law 103-322, the 1994 Anti Crime Bill, required the Attorney General to report to Congress on police use of force. Because no national standard for the collection and dissemination of this information then existed, the Department of Justice, through the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Institute of Justice funded a pilot program through the IACP to develop and deploy a computerized national data collection instrument and resulting database on police use of force.