Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology最新文献

Public safety personnel (PSP), including Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), have previously reported substantial suicide-related difficulties. The challenges raised concerns from the National Police Federation (NPF), policymakers, and lawmakers about better protection of RCMP mental health. The current study used self-report survey data to provide updated estimates of past-year and lifetime suicidal ideation, planning, and attempts among RCMP. Data were also collected for past and current screens for mental health disorders. The current RCMP sample reported statistically significant higher percentages of lifetime and past-year suicidal ideation and planning than previous RCMP and PSP samples. There were numerous statistically significant associations reported between lifetime and past-year suicidal ideation and behaviours, and past and current mental health disorder symptoms.

Police officers frequently interact with the public, and many of these interactions involve some form of conflict. As professionals, and representatives of the state, police officers are expected to handle these conflicts in a professional and just manner to maintain positive relationships with the public. Therefore, solid conflict management skills are necessary for any officer in a democratic society. The present scoping review examines the current state of research on police involved conflicts and conflict management in a police context. Results indicate that a majority of the studies have been conducted in the USA and that many of these studies focus on use of force rather than effective conflict management strategies and methods. The study further indicates a number of methodological difficulties in researching this important area of policing, including difficulties in obtaining data as well as a lack of unified definitions of concepts and methods.

Despite the higher prevalence of mental health disorders among serving Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) relative to the general population, RCMP cadets begin training with lower putative risk and greater perceived resilience than young adults in the general population. The current study was designed to assess the effectiveness of the Cadet Training Program—the paramilitary training RCMP recruits complete to become serving RCMP—in strengthening RCMP cadets’ mental health by examining putative risk and resilience factors among post-training/pre-deployment cadets. Post-training/pre-deployment cadets (n = 492; 70.5% men) completed self-report measures of several putative risk variables (i.e., anxiety sensitivity, fear of negative evaluation, illness and injury sensitivity, intolerance of uncertainty, pain anxiety, and state anger) and perceived resilience. Cadets’ post-training/pre-deployment scores were compared to their pre-training scores (see Khoury et al. in Front Psychol 14:1048573, 2023) on the same measures, and to scores from Canadian, American, Australian, and European young adult control samples. Participants had significantly lower scores on all putative risk variables with the exception of state anger, and significantly higher scores on perceived resilience, at post-training/pre-deployment compared to pre-training. Participants also had significantly lower scores on all putative risk variables, and significantly higher scores on perceived resilience, compared to scores from young adult control samples. These uncontrolled pilot findings suggest the Cadet Training Program may be beneficial for RCMP cadets’ mental health and provide further evidence that the nature of policing, rather than individual differences in risk and resilience, likely explains serving RCMP’s relatively higher prevalence of mental health disorders.

The police require legitimacy in order to function. It is argued that this legitimacy can be attained through procedural justice; that is, fairness. An ethnographic study of street-level policing was undertaken to explore this idea. From this study issues embedded in policing emerged (discretion, threat, and cynicism). Broader issues also emerged. For example, officers function as street-level bureaucrats. However, officers suffer from extreme stress and suicide. Also, officers feel they handle society’s “dirty work.” In employing procedural justice, officers do not usually impose their will on citizens. Rather, they negotiate an acceptable outcome in most situations. However, outside influences impinge on the police.

This paper investigates the disparities in adopting cognitive interviewing techniques between local and federal law enforcement agencies in the USA. Despite the established benefits of these techniques for enhancing witness recall accuracy and reducing false confessions, adoption at the local level lags significantly behind federal practices. Through a qualitative synthesis of existing literature and public reports, this study identifies the main barriers to adoption, which include resource limitations, training deficiencies, and cultural resistance within local agencies. The analysis suggests that comprehensive training programs, legislative mandates, and cultural shifts within law enforcement are critical to overcoming these barriers. Recommendations for promoting broader adoption include enhancing resource allocation for training, implementing national standards for investigative practices, and leveraging successful models from federal agencies. The paper underscores the need for a unified approach to improve investigative outcomes and justice across all levels of law enforcement.

As a result of the systematic dismantling of the mental health care system in the United States, responsibility for people experiencing mental health emergencies has transferred from mental health care professionals to law enforcement officers. Due to this blending of the mental health system with the criminal justice system, people with untreated mental illness are disproportionately arrested, incarcerated, and fatally shot by law enforcement. In response to the need to provide appropriate mental health treatment for people in crisis, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Police Department (UIPD) created the Response, Evaluation, and Crisis Help (REACH) Program, a collaborative team that brings police officers and social workers together to co-respond to mental health-related calls for service. While some research exists on the implementation of co-responder models of policing in local law enforcement agencies, there is a gap in the literature on co-responder models in a college and university settings, where students often find themselves in crisis during times when mental health services are unavailable. Drawing from qualitative data obtained through semi-structured interviews from a sample (n = 4) of social workers, the current work examines the experiences of mental health professionals operating alongside law enforcement officers in response to people experiencing mental health crises on a university campus. Implications for public policy are addressed.

Citizen insecurity has become a problem that threatens people’s mental health, due to its negative impact on the well-being and quality of life of the population. In Peru, one of the most frequent forms of crime is robbery, which occurs when the victim withdraws money from an ATM or bank. Therefore, it is necessary to have instruments to measure the magnitude of the impact of these events on mental health. To design and validate a scale of concern about being a robbery victim when withdrawing money from an ATM or bank in Peruvian citizens. 759 Peruvian citizens between 18 and 68 years of age (women = 56.65%, mean age = 27.64, SD = 8.25) participated. In addition to the EPre-RD scale, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-2 (GAD-2) was applied. Evidence of content-based validity was obtained from the criteria of expert judges; the internal structure was analyzed under a factor-analytic approach; and validity based on association with other variables was explored by calculating Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Finally, reliability was analyzed through the alpha coefficient. The EPre-RD items received a favorable evaluation in respect of representativeness, relevance, and clarity. In addition, evidence of a unidimensional structure was found, both from the exploratory factor analysis and the confirmatory factor analysis, and so was a positive association with anxiety. Finally, reliability obtained an adequate value. The EPre-RD is an instrument with adequate psychometric properties to be used as a measure of the emotional impact of worry about being a victim of a robbery when withdrawing money from an ATM or bank in Peruvian citizens.

The Covid-19 pandemic conveyed consequences for people’s physical and mental health. During the worst pandemic scenarios, police officers were one of the most exposed populations. This situation brought these professionals unusual responsibilities, such as adjust work shifts and allocate police officers from operational and administrative services to the Covid-19 supervision teams and put them at an elevated risk of contracting the virus because they are also frontline workers too, and they often did not have personal protective equipment. Due to this, the main objective of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of a Portuguese version of the Fear of Covid-19 among police officers, as well as to know how the fear of Covid-19 relates to the mental health during the worst wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Portugal. Participants were 174 police officers aged between 23 and 58 years old (M = 40.81; SD = 6.83) who completed the Fear of Covid-19 Scale, the Operational Police Stress Questionnaire, and the Posttraumatic Disorder Checklist for DSM-5. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed a good adjustment fit for the two-factor model. Construct validity was supported, and the internal consistency was good for both periods of assessment. The model proved invariant for both groups (pre and during lockdown) at the measurement, scalar, and structural levels. Study findings suggest that the Portuguese Version of FCV-19S is a reliable measure to assess the fear of Covid-19 among police officers, including during the pandemic development.

In extreme situations, the police have limited time to react when a threat or a situation arises suddenly. Situation awareness has been identified as a key factor for success in how tactical decisions are made. This helps the police to perform secure and legally correct interventions and decisions. We collected the primary data from 21 interviews with police officers, supplemented by literature and documents. We analyzed the relationship between tactical methods and situation awareness. The purpose of the article is to explore the relationship between police tactics and police officers’ work with situation awareness. Situation awareness has been studied through the lens of the Swedish police general tactical explanation model. We discuss how the general tactical explanation model provides the conditions for the police officers’ explanations to achieve situation awareness. We conclude that if the general tactical explanation model is applied during tactical interventions there are better possibilities to achieve situation awareness.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) lie detection is a proposed method of determining criminal culpability, though it is currently unknown how this method will impact juror decisions. The present study investigated the persuasiveness of EEG lie detection with potential Australian jurors. Through a vignette-based experiment, participants (N = 421) were required to make juror-based decisions (i.e. guilty, not guilty and unsure) on a 1989 U.S. trial involving the brutal murder of a young woman. Participants read about forensic evidence (blood, shoeprint and fibre analysis) presented at the 1989 trial that led to the suspect’s conviction. Half of the participants also read about an EEG lie detection test conducted 11 years post-conviction that indicated the convicted man was innocent. Chi-square analysis showed the EEG information significantly affected determinations of guilt. Guilty verdicts were made by 41% of participants who did not read the EEG evidence. However, only 27% of participants who read the EEG evidence voted guilty. The implications of implementing EEG lie detection are discussed.