Nine police officers in Northern Ireland report being assaulted every day, and the actual figure is believed to be much higher.
The figures were revealed by the union that represents rank and file PSNI officers at the launch of a campaign to highlight the issue and press for tougher sentences for perpetrators.
78 PSNI officers were injured in rioting during the past week and a half.
A campaign launched today by the Police Federation of Northern Ireland highlights the fact that its members endure attacks on a daily basis.
"Over the last three years there has been a cumulative total of 9,415 assaults and 2,826 of those have involved some form of injury," Federation chair Liam Kelly said at the launch of the Let Them Protect campaign at Stormont.
"These figures are shocking and appalling. It's high time we saw a much tougher approach with assailants who strike, kick, punch and spit at our colleagues.
"We want the public to realise the full extent of what our officers - themselves fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters - have to suffer. It's not right they should end up in hospital with injuries they sustain while protecting the community.
"Decisive and tough sentences handed down by Magistrates and Judges will deter those who assault our officers. Sentencing guidelines must be strengthened to empower our Courts to implement an effective deterrent."
Currently an average of nine police officers report being assaulted each day, and the federation believes that is a conservative figure as many officers who suffer minor assaults do not report them.
The campaign is aimed at highlighting the impact assaults on officers has on the ability of the PSNI to do its job, with many of those attacked having to take time off work.
PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said that since taking up the post 2023 he has been shocked at what he described as an unacceptable acceptable level of violence towards police officers.
"Being attacked should never be thought of as part of anyone's normal day at work," he said at the campaign launch.
"We are incredibly fortunate to have the policing that we do in Northern Ireland but we cannot continue to take that policing for granted.
"Support for policing, and for our police officers, needs to be society wide, and it should be recognised and understood that it is simply not acceptable to assault or attack police officers.
"We cannot, and will not, simply stand by and accept it."
The chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, Mukesh Sharma, said figures demonstrate that assaults on police officers are now no longer isolated incidents.
"Police officers step forward when others step back," he said.
"They put their lives on the line for others every day and they do not deserve to come to work to be kicked, bitten or assaulted in any other way."
Stormont's justice minister Naomi Long's department is drafting new legislation with a specific offence and tougher sentences for anyone who attacks a member of the emergency services.
She told the launch event that society needs to "move away from the idea that police officers should somehow just price this into the job they do".
The minister said it was not acceptable that the lives of officers are put at risk by being physically assaulted and attacked.
"Higher maximum sentences will allow the judiciary to better reflect the seriousness of these assaults in their sentencing decisions," she added.
"That attacking a police officer is an attack on the whole community and will be treated as an aggravated offence."
The justice minister hopes the proposed new legislation will become law before the end of the current Stormont Assembly mandate in May 2027.
