More than 2000 people in Sussex are on police bail, according to figures released by Sussex Police.
Of the 2,102 people currently on bail in the county, 147 have been on police bail for longer than six months.
In one case, one person was on bail for 628 days (20 months) after being arrested in 2011.
Police bail is where a suspect is released from the police station without being charged with an agreement or an understanding to return at an agreed time while investigations continue. There is currently no limit on how long someone can be kept on police bail in England and Wales before police make the decision to charge them or not.
Nationally, the Law Society for England and Wales has called for bail periods to have a time limit.
A spokesman for Sussex Police said the force was always looking to speed up the bail process but enquiries needed to be investigated thoroughly.
The spokesman said: “It is unfortunate that some detainees are on bail for long periods of time and we are always looking at ways of speeding up this process.
“However, the main reason is due to the number of enquiries that need to be carried out in order to progress investigations thoroughly and professionally. Suspects are released on bail whilst this essential policing work is undertaken.
“To put the figure of 2,102 into some context, Sussex Police has a rolling year figure of 35,500 detainees arrested in Sussex; therefore 2,102 equates to just 5.92 per cent of the total.”
More than 57,000 people are currently on police bail in the country.
The force with the highest number of people on bail for more than six months was the Metropolitan police in London with 910. The Met currently has 12,178 people on bail. This is compared to Warwickshire which has 356 people on police bail, the lowest in the country. Avon and Somerset and Leicestershire police forces had just one person on police bail for more than six months.