Community safety and repurposing the police before, during, and after a pandemic: Methodological notes

Abstract

The text below is a lightly edited version of our response to a call for research proposals on COVID-19. We wrote it in early April 2020. We reproduce it here as a source of insight for how to think about stressors, strains, and possible changes to the role of the police. The proposal raises the issue of when police leaders explicitly must reckon with the future of policing in the aftermath of crises.

Community-based policing in COVID-19: a 4-P’s priorities of Vietnam’s police

“…Globally, several diverse approaches were continued by different police forces around the world to maintain social order in the chaos of COVID-19. In comparison to healthcare and public health experiences, police forces in almost countries have lacked comprehensive framework, specific programme, and practical strategies to deal with coronavirus threats (Levi et al 2020). Apart from some initial sharing and experienced lessons from the Police Executive Research Forum and the Office of Justice Programs' Bureau of Justice Assistance (Luna et al 2007) which called for further attention since the 2003 SARS as well as the Global Law Enforcement and Public Health (GLEPH) and Law Enforcement and HIV Network (LEAHN) where the role of policing in public health and how interconnect among these agencies to deal with health crises were discussed (van Dijk and Crofts 2017, Punch 2019, van Dijk et al 2019, many policing organisations at international, regional, and national level still lack specific guidelines to reply upon.…”

“…Alternatively, police cooperate with others to implement health priorities to control the spread of the virus, including airport health screenings, physical distancing, a 14-day quarantine period for international arrivals and further duties (Dabla-Norris et al 2020, Roberts 2020b. Besides that, when the crime rates have dropped significantly since people started staying indoors though we are witnessing increased reporting of domestic violence and child abuse as well as cyber-related crimes on cyberspace, the need for foot patrols of police is also reduced reality, and alternatively, police have to be involved in public duties to support COVID-19 norms (Carlson 2020, Levi et al 2020. 3 Clearly, the COVID-19 crisis has created policing back to the forefront of the public mind through their different approaches in daily activities.…”