Policing is undoubtedly a dangerous occupation whereby officers are routinely exposed to dangerous and potentially traumatic events, such as attending road traffic collisions, informing people of the death of a loved one, and ensuring public safety at football matches. Frontline policing is of course not the only place whereby constant exposure to dangerous and distressing incidents can increase the risk of police employees developing emotional and psychological complaints that have serious effects on their ‘wellbeing’, with previous research identifying specific policing areas such as homicide investigation as likely to have negative effects on those doing the investigating. Although to date, research has focused on the wellbeing effects of ‘routine policing’, criminal investigation, and specific events, as yet little is known about the effect on UK police employees wellbeing of ‘doing the job’ in terms of the number of days recorded as absent due to psychological illness, trauma, and stress. This study seeks to redress this gap by analysing sickness absence data recorded for 20 UK Police services for the past 10 years, obtained under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. The data set represents some 57% of UK police personnel, and findings suggest that police employee absence due to psychological ill health, trauma, and stress had nearly doubled in the past 10 years to an absence rate of 8.82%. Furthermore, this study found that 39% of those who take a first leave of absence due to mental ill health go on to take further absences from work.
Although the death of a child is without doubt one of the most distressing events imaginable, when it occurs in suspicious circumstances, such as at the hand of a parent or close family member, its effects are often more acute and incomprehensible. This paper presents an exploratory study comparing the cognitive and emotional stressors experienced by police when investigating child and adult homicides. The results of an online survey questionnaire with 99 experienced UK police investigators are presented, with key differences found in the cognitive and emotional stress experienced depending on whether the victim is a child or an adult, key differences and similarities identified in the ways investigators deal and cope with adult and child homicide cases, with a tentative discussion of the implications for the well-being and training of police investigators provided.
Previous research has identified those who commit serious driving offences, such as driving while over the legal limit for alcohol, dangerous and reckless driving, and driving while legally disqualified, as more likely to engage in other types of criminality, including serious offences, than their non-serious driving offender counterparts. Furthermore, those who continue to drive while disqualified have been singled out as the most likely group of serious driving offenders to be involved in a wide array of different types of offending and at rates more consistent with mainstream criminals than those who simply commit other driving-related offences. The present study builds on previous findings by focusing explicitly on the offending versatility of a sample of 50 disqualified drivers, the different categories of crime they commit, and the recency of other offences relative to the driving whilst disqualifying offence. With an overwhelming percentage of the sample found to have convictions for other types of offences, the study concludes with the suggestion that although driving while disqualified should be considered a trigger offence in self-selection policing, several anticipated obstacles to implementation must first be removed before it can be firmly integrated into current police practice.
In a previous paper, key differences in the form and manifestation of cognitive and emotional stress experienced by investigators of adult and child homicide were identified, along with a cursory look at how investigators commonly deal or cope with these effects. In this paper, the findings from eleven interviews with UK and Danish police officers with experience of investigating both adult and child homicides, suggest that child homicide investigations can have a profoundly different effect on police investigators that can vary between officers. The effects experienced and coping strategies employed were similar among officers in Denmark and the UK, and these included becoming more emotionally closed and engaging in regular sport and exercise. The findings hold important implications for police training and for the welfare of current and future police homicide investigators particularly where the victim is a child.
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