Impacts of organisational role and environmental factors on moral injury and trauma amongst police investigators in Internet Child Abuse Teams
| Author | Mark Doyle,Kit Tapson,Vasileios Karagiannopoulos,Peter Lee |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X211043331 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
2023, Vol. 96(1) 153–171
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X211043331
journals.sagepub.com/home/pjx
Impacts of organisational role
and environmental factors on
moral injury and trauma
amongst police investigators in
Internet Child Abuse Teams
Mark Doyle
School of Sport Health and Social Sciences, Southampton Solent University, Southampton, UK
Kit Tapson
Creative and Cultural Industries, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
Vasileios Karagiannopoulos
Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
Peter Lee
Creative and Cultural Industries, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
Abstract
Little is known about how the effects of moral injury and trauma manifest amongst police
Internet Child AbuseTeams. This article reports on the impacts of organisational role and
environmentalfactors on moral injury and traumaamongst this population. Six participants
were recruited fromtwo police constabularies in the United Kingdom.Data were analysed
using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Findings indicated that the participants’
moral injury and trauma were predominantly attributable to excessive workloads and
stigma in relationto mental health within policing.Generic psychologicalinterventions were
insufficiently responsive to the complex needs of the police investigators.
Keywords
Moral injury and trauma, police Internet Child Abuse Teams, interpretative
phenomenological analysis, psychological review
Corresponding author:
Mark Doyle, Faculty of Sport, Health and Social Science, Southampton Solent University, East Park Terrace,
Southampton SO14 0YN, UK.
Email: Mark.Doyle@solent.ac.uk
Introduction
This article presents and discusses the organisational and environmental factors on trauma
and moral injury amongst Internet Child Abuse Team (ICAT)investigators. The following
sections include an outline of the methods used, evaluation of the findings and a con-
cluding discussion where relevant literature is considered in light of the findings.
Viewed within the context of individual morbidity, the mental and physical ill health
experienced by ICAT investigators is found to adversely affect workplace performance,
future career prospects (Heffren and Hausdorf 2016) and premature retirement (Collins
and Gibbs 2003;Summerfield 2011). Such evidence suggests a two way process, where
the organisational environment effects ICATinvestigators, who are subsequently affected,
emphasising its importance as a focus for research.
Additionally, radical increases in internet use have enabled heinous crime such as
online child abuse. In the United Kingdom (UK), during the first month of lockdown
(April 2020), 8.8 million attempts were made at accessing child abuse content online
(Grierson, 2020, 20 May 2020), demanding intensive investigations from ICAT inves-
tigators. Unless managed correctly, the complex and demanding tasks undertaken by
ICAT inevitably contribute to increased levels of stress and burnout, higher levels of
psychological risk (College of Policing, 2018: 5), physiological ill health (Han et al. 2018;
Garbarino, 2019;Zimmerman, 2011) and complex trauma (Blumberg et al., 2018).
(A) Trauma needs to be defined and explained in a little more detail as does.
(B) Why moral injury is likely to be high with those charged with investigating ICA
(i.e. that they could not intervene and help the children).
(A) According to the DSM V(The Diagnostoc and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders) (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), trauma is the direct personal ex-
perience of an event (e.g. naturel disaster, involvement in warfare and rape) that involves
actual or threatened death or serious injury. Trauma can be grouped into four main
categories; acute (exposure to a single traumatic event), chronic (repeated and prolonged
exposure), complex (multiple exposures) and vicarious (development of trauma symp-
toms from close contact with someone who has experienced a traumatic event). Effective
trauma processing depends upon factors including; an individual’s mental health, pre-
vious exposure to traumatic events and their emotional self-awareness, which, in turn,
moderate recovery (Goff et al. (2007).
The long-term sequelae of traumatic events include functional, quality of life im-
pairments, occupational and psychological (Resnick and Rosenheck, 2008;Sayer et al.,
2010). It is these latter two which bear particular relevance to the current article as,
unsurprisingly, viewing multiple video images of online child sexual abuse places ICAT
investigators at high risk of developing complex and vicarious trauma. The nature of their
work has also been found to violate deeply held moral beliefs about what investigators
hold as right (Bourke and Craun, 2014;Kamkar et al., 2019), thus causing enduring
psychological damage that is known as moral injury (Jones, 2018).
Moral injury was first identified amongst Vietnam veterans (Shay, 2002,2010). It was
found to occur when an individual perpetrated, failed to prevent or witnessed events that
contravened foundational moral beliefs and values (Litz et al., 2009: 695). Such violations
154 The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles 96(1)
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