Pandemic policing: Highlighting the need for trauma-informed services during and beyond the COVID-19 crisis

Abstract

There has been a move towards trauma-informed services in multiple systems whose services are provided by police, medical doctors, nurses, teachers, and social workers, to name a few. Trauma-informed practices are best described as understanding the psychological and physiological impacts of trauma in a strengths-based framework. This becomes increasingly important in a policing context during the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential for increased intimate partner violence, child abuse, trauma, and other Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) may have implications for years to come that will impact justice systems, health care, and education. Having trauma-informed police services may mitigate this and provide police with the skills to identify and address issues early on to work towards getting the necessary supports to families in need.

Universal precautions: A methodology for trauma-informed justice

“…The concept of trauma is not new to the criminal justice system, but a true understanding of who the Justice Client is tends to be very limited. The fact that the vast majority of incarcerated people, both men and women, have experienced victimization and/or ACEs prior to their first detected offence (Jones, 2020;Jones, Bucerius & Haggerty, 2019;Finkelhore et al, 2015) needs to be taken account in how we train frontline police and correctional staff and others in the justice system. Providing justice system actors knowledge of the impacts of trauma on human development will lead to better understanding, resulting in changes in how the system treats these individuals.…”

“…What is absent from most frontline justice academy syllabi is providing an understanding of the social determinants of crime and who the Justice Client is. This training and education about trauma, ACEs, and the Justice Client is also absent from the vast majority of law schools, criminology and criminal justice programs (James, 2020;Jones, 2020;Dierkhising & Branson, 2016). This is not to say that the Justice Client is a homogenous group; however, there are specific factors, such as victimization, trauma, and ACEs, that play a role in the development of people and their justice interactions (Edalati et al, 2017).…”

“…However, this focuses primarily on what police are doing and is not as prescriptive on how police interact with the community. The move towards trauma-informed policing provides police with a better understanding of the impacts of trauma in the lives of the people with whom police interact (Jones, 2020). Such an understanding, together with a move towards changing how police interact with communities, specifically the marginalized, vulnerable, and often overpoliced communities, in order to approach this interaction with a public health lens, cannot be achieved until police leaders start to acknowledge that what has been done in the past is not successful.…”

The Martinsburg Initiative: A Collaboration Between Public Safety, Public Health, and Schools to Address Trauma and Substance Use

“…To promote protective social norms, Martinsburg police officers and Martinsburg schools teachers and staff have been trained in trauma-informed approaches designed to improve an understanding of the physical and psychological impacts of ACEs, trauma, and abuse and to enhance their work with students and families. 7,8 TMI developed an instrument based on the Healthy Environments and Response to Trauma in Schools 9 tools to measure teachers' knowledge and their perceptions about student engagement before and after trauma-informed training and offers a certification in trauma-informed teaching that requires multiple courses, observations, and implementation of the techniques. Martinsburg police officers who receive training on trauma-informed approaches to law enforcement complete the Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care (ARTIC) scale 10 that measures changes in perceptions of and attitudes towards a trauma-informed approach.…”

A field study on the police use of the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA).

“…In the field of policing, the role of police officers has expanded to include preventing crimes (Sherman, 2013) and providing services that are trauma-informed (Jones, 2020). Using validated risk tools to identify higher risk individuals who have a propensity to commit violent crimes would increase this focus on prevention and allocate resources to intervene where possible, in order to prevent further revictimization.…”