Policing the COVID-19 pandemic: police officer well-being and commitment to democratic modes of policing

Abstract

Police organisations have a wealth of experience in responding to emergencies, but COVID-19 is unprecedented in terms of the speed, scale and complexity of developing doctrine and its implementation by officers. The crisis also threw into sharp relief the fact that police policy and, crucially, practice are always implemented within wider social, political and economic contexts. Using online survey data collected from 325 police officers based at forces operating across different UK contexts (cities, conurbations, towns and rural areas), we seek to understand officer experiences and perceptions of policing COVID-19. In particular, we examine whether (internally) organisational climate and (externally) the UK government's response to COVID-19 were important to (a) officers' support for police use of force at times of emergency, (b) officer's support for procedurally just policing at times of emergency, and (c) their health and well-being; and whether identification and perceptions of selflegitimacy mediate the associations between these variables. We show that a positive organisational climate was associated with less support for police use of force, more support for procedurally just policing and increased police officer health and well-being. Our results, however, suggest potential negative correlates of police officer self-legitimacy: higher levels of self-legitimacy were associated with poorer police officer health and well-being and increased support for police use of force. These results have important implications for our understanding of police officer well-being and police officers' commitment to democratic modes of policing when faced with policing a pandemic.

Cops and COVID: an examination of California officers' perceptions and experiences while policing during a pandemic

“…Few research studies relied on front-line officers' perceptions and experiences. In fact, we are only aware of one published study from the United Kingdom where the unit of analysis was the individual officer (Kyprianides et al , in press). It found that a positive organizational climate was associated with increased police officer health and well-being.…”

E‐government and the hurdle of the “digital divide”? Rethinking the responses of the underprivileged in COVID‐19 Hong Kong

“…These measures in response to the pandemic push us to rethink some fundamental questions on public policy: the roles of government in services delivery, ways to arrange services, and prioritization of beneficiaries (N. W. M. Wong et al, 2022 ). Scholars have studied the model of antipandemic strategies in Asia (Choi, 2020 ; Hartley & Jarvis, 2020 ; Ho & Chan, 2021 ; Hsieh et al, 2021 ; Huang, 2020 ; Wan et al, 2020 ; Woo, 2020 ; Yuen et al, 2021 ); the antagonism between pandemic control and individual rights (the use of big data and information technology for the surveillance of potential virus carriers); challenges in policing and public accountability (the extraordinary policing tasks of enforcing lockdowns and social distancing legislation by police officers); unemployment/underemployment problems (business suspensions and closures); family and mental health issues (prolonged class suspensions, work‐from‐home arrangements, home quarantines, bans of intra/interfamily gatherings and border closures), and so on (Alcadipani et al, 2020 ; Brooks & Lopez, 2020 ; Chan et al, 2021 ; Farrow, 2020 ; Ho et al, 2020 ; Kyprianides et al, 2021 ). Findings from these emerging scholarly analyses could be important tips for policymakers to respond to the quickly transforming society in the post‐COVID era.…”

COVID-19, distress and potential trauma exposure in the police service of England and Wales: A mixed method approach

“…Whilst much research has, quite rightly, focused on the impact of the current crisis on healthcare professionals, less attention has been given to the impact of COVID-19 on other public sector personnel such as police officers ( Alcadipani et al, 2020 ). Nonetheless, some research has already been conducted on policing during the pandemic; with several studies focussing on practical responses to the immediate challenges faced by the police, such as the impact of social distancing on crime or access to personal protective equipment (PPE), whilst others have taken a more humanistic approach by examining the impact of COVID-19 on officer health and wellbeing ( De Camargo, 2021a , 2021b ; Frenkel et al, 2021 ; Langton et al, 2021 ; Kyprianides et al., 2021 ; Laufs and Waseem, 2020 ; Mohler et al, 2020 ).…”

“…In summary, whilst exposure to traumatic events is considered as routine within UK policing and recent research has documented the detrimental impact of the global pandemic on the general health and wellbeing of officers ( De Camargo, 2021b ; Frenkel et al, 2021 ; Graham et al, 2021 ; Kyprianides et al, 2021 ), the impact of COVID-19 on potential trauma exposure has yet to be explored. As such, this paper aims to provide a preliminary exploration into the impact of the pandemic on the type of trauma that officers have been exposed to and, where possible, quantify the scope of these impacts and identify high-risk roles.…”