Police forces

HMICFRS inspects and reports to the public and their elected representatives on how well the police do their job.

We provide authoritative information to allow the public to compare the performance of their police force against others. Our evidence is used to drive improvements in the services they provide and to highlight good practice.

Our inspections, and our monitoring of forces, identify areas where improvement is needed. We make recommendations and monitor the progress of these. We also identify areas of notable practice where forces are to be commended for innovation and good performance.

Local force inspections

HMICFRS inspects and monitors the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales. We report on their effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy via our PEEL assessments.

We also work with other inspectorates – within criminal justice and more broadly – to address problems that involve more than one agency. These inspections include our work with Ofsted, Care Quality Commission (CQC) and HMI Probation on child protection; and our programme of police custody inspections with CQC.

Click on your force in the map below to find out more about it or browse the Our Work section to explore the inspections we do.

Specialist inspections

As well as territorial policing inspections, we also inspect:

  • non-territorial services, such as British Transport Police and Ministry of Defence Police;
  • specialist agencies, such as HM Revenue & Customs and the National Crime Agency; and
  • international police forces, such as the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Jersey Police and Bermuda Police Service.

See the Specialist inspections category in the Our Work section to find out more about the types of inspection we carry out in these areas.

National analysis

We often pull findings of our force-level inspections into larger, thematic reports, giving an overview of a particular aspect of policing on a national level.

These thematic inspections can be commissioned by the Home Secretary, to analyse a specific area of policing.

Browse the Our Work section to find out more about the types of inspections we carry out.

Map of police forces in England and Wales

Choose your area on the map below to find out more about your local force or browse news items and reports.

Find your police force

Other forces and other organisations

HMICFRS inspects international police forces and specialist law enforcement agencies. These range from police forces of Commonwealth countries to the National Crime Agency and HM Revenue and Customs.