The impact of COVID-19 on police training academies

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the impacts coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had on US police academies’ production of police recruits.Design/methodology/approachThe study used a national online survey of police academy directors in the USA, followed by purposive, semi-structured interviews of select academy directors. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data is combined in a mixed methods approach.FindingsThe findings suggest that academies experienced a range of impacts related to COVID-19. These impacts lead to more questions concerning how academies and state-level governing boards responded not only to pandemic-related challenges, but also to their willingness to accept more online and alternative curriculum delivery strategies.Originality/valuePolice academies are a required step in the production of new police recruits in the USA, but researchers have paid little attention to how academies operate. While exploratory, this study provides some insights into how this aspect of policing weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, and offers suggestions for future research, as well as policy implications.

Emerging results on the impact of COVID-19 on police training in the United Kingdom

“…However, since the emergence of COVID-19 in the U.K there has been no detailed examination of how it affected the area of training within policing. What literature does exist within policing has focused on academies training new recruits (White et al, 2021), or is unempirical in nature (Fuchs, 2021). Instead, research has focussed on overall crime rates which have been examined in the United States (Boman and Gallupe, 2020), Australia (Payne et al, 2020) and the United Kingdom, and identified that crime rates reduced significantly (Halford et al, 2020).…”

Guest editorial: On the other side of normal: policing in a pandemic editorial introduction

“…Two articles in this issue focus on how police practices were impacted or adapted due to the pandemic. White et al . (2021) use a mixed methods approach to understand the challenges faced by police training activities.…”

“…Two articles in this issue focus on how police practices were impacted or adapted due to the pandemic. White et al (2021) use a mixed methods approach to understand the challenges faced by police training activities. They collected data from a national online survey (n 5 127) of police academy directors in the USA and then followed up with semi-structured interviews (n 5 19).…”

Documenting variability in operational and organizational experiences related to COVID-19 in Washington state

“…Given 90% of the population in the United States were under the effect of stay-at-home orders (White and Fradella, 2020), understanding the experiences of those agencies as they served their communities is vital to a more holistic picture of policing during the pandemic. There is also a collateral need to document the experiences of police agencies to better understand and isolate areas for improvement and pathways to more effective collaborations in response to future public health emergencies (White et al ., 2021; Jones, 2020),…”

“…Given 90% of the population in the United States were under the effect of stay-at-home orders (White and Fradella, 2020), understanding the experiences of those agencies as they served their communities is vital to a more holistic picture of policing during the pandemic. There is also a collateral need to document the experiences of police agencies to better understand and isolate areas for improvement and pathways to more effective collaborations in response to future public health emergencies (White et al, 2021;Jones, 2020), To enhance "lessons learned", this research captures the organizational and operational experiences of police departments in the state of Washington across two waves of survey administration. It is in part a state-specific replication of the IACP instrument fielded by Lum et al (2020a) on the experiences of police departments working under COVID-19.…”