A price paid? A review of the research on the impact of investigating serious crime on the wellbeing of police staff
| Date | 01 March 2022 |
| Author | Ashley Cartwright,Jason Roach |
| Published date | 01 March 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X211049335 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
Special Issue: Are we OK? The State of Wellbeing in Policing
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
2022, Vol. 95(1) 109–126
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X211049335
journals.sagepub.com/home/pjx
A price paid? A review of the
research on the impact of
investigating serious crime on
the wellbeing of police staff
Ashley Cartwrightand Jason Roach
Applied Criminology and Policing Centre, University of Huddersfield School of Human and Health Sciences,
Huddersfield, UK
Abstract
Research pertaining to the wellbeing of police focuses on the job at a macro level,
neglecting that policing is an occupation made up of thousands of roles. The needs of staff
in various roles differs according to the situations that they are exposed to. This paper
provides a review of the literature pertaining to the impact of criminal investigation on
employees’wellbeing. Three discernible categories regarding the wellbeing of criminal
investigators are revealed and the paper demonstrates that criminal investigation has a
negative effect on the wellbeing of staff. The paper concludes with recommendations for
future research, training and support.
Keywords
Police, wellbeing, post-traumatic stress disorder, criminal investigation, trauma, serious
crime
Introduction
Many police staff encounter traumatic events on a routine, daily basis. Sickness absence
due to poor psychological health, in a UK policing context, is at an all-time high with
reported absences seen to have almost doubled over the past 10 years (Cartwright and
Roach, 2020). The research literature to date, relating to the psychological health and
wellbeing of police, has so far overwhelmingly tended to focus on operational aspects of
the role, such as the negative effects of ‘patrolling’on those police that do it. Little
Corresponding author:
Ashley Cartwright, Applied Criminology and Policing Centre, University of Huddersfield School of Human
and Health Sciences, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK.
Email: a.cartwright@hud.ac.uk
attention has been paid so far to how other tasks and roles police undertake can affect the
wellbeing of police staff, such as working in counter-terrorism policing or attending
violent crime scenes. With this short paper we attempt several things: first, to present a
‘stock-take’review of the emerging research literature that explores the common negative
effects on wellbeing associated with being involved with criminal investigations, par-
ticularly child sexual abuse and homicide cases. Second, we review the research on how
police staff involved with investigating such cases actually cope with the negative effects
on personal wellbeing (e.g. psychologically, emotionally and physically) that often such
cases carry. Third, and last, we tentatively suggest some areas for future research con-
sideration. We begin with a brief exploration of the different types of negative effects on
wellbeing before moving swiftly to a review of the research in an investigative context.
Negative effects on wellbeing
Despite the serious and disturbing acts of criminality which are investigated by police
colleagues, few studies are yet to explore the different ways and extent to which in-
vestigating serious crimes such as murder, can psychologically and emotionally affect
criminal investigators. The experience of investigating acts of criminality often com-
prising serious violence, for example, is posited to pose risks of psychological trauma to
those involved. Duckworth (1991) defines psychological trauma as
“severe emotional and mental disruption which can follow the experience of certain kinds of
extreme events—including those where there is no physical injury”(p. 35).
Experiencing trauma and the psychological effects which might follow as a direct
consequencehave received much attention (e.g.see MacEachern et al., 2011). For example,
post-traumaticstress disorder (PTSD)defined by the International Classificationof Diseases
11th (ICD-11) edition as a disorder which occurs after “exposure to an extremely
threatening or horrific event or series of events that is characterizedby all of the following:
1. re-experiencing the traumatic event or events in the present in the form of vivid
intrusive memories, flashbacks, or nightmares, which are typically accompanied
by strong and overwhelming emotions such as fear or horror and strong physical
sensations, or feelings of being overwhelmed or immersed in the same intense
emotions that were experienced during the traumatic event;
2. avoidance of thoughts and memories of the event or events, or avoidance of
activities, situations, or people reminiscent of the event or events; and
3. persistent perceptions of heightened current threat, for example as indicated by
hypervigilance or an enhanced startle reaction to stimuli such as unexpected
noises”(World Health Organization, 2019).
For PTSD to be diagnosed, the symptoms above must (1) be considered to have
endured for at least 2 weeks and (2) be seen to have substantially impaired a person’s life
(e.g. they have been unable to sleep or to concentrate). Generally speaking, it is often more
110 The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles 95(1)
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