During the years 2001 to 2007 the police forces of the German states and Switzerland introduced the so-called police ammunition into service. This ammunition armed with a deforming bullet promised greater effectiveness and less endangerment to bystanders due to the limited penetration power. However, at lower impact energy the bullet deforms less, the effectiveness is reduced and the penetration depth increases. In this article the dependence of the deformation and the penetration depth in ballistic soap on the impact energy was investigated for all four presently used police bullets. Reduced effectiveness must be expected even at shooting distances of 20-30 m. For weapons which have frequently been fired the muzzle velocity can also be so drastically reduced that even at shorter shooting distances the bullets will not deform as expected.