Taking the strain? Police well-being in the COVID-19 era
| Author | Robert Inkpen,Paul Smith,Stephanie Bennett,Camille Ilett,Sarah Charman,Aram Ghaemmaghami,Geoff Newiss |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X211044702 |
| Published date | 01 March 2022 |
| Date | 01 March 2022 |
| 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) 88–108
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X211044702
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Taking the strain? Police
well-being in the COVID-19
era
Geoff Newiss, Sarah Charman, Camille Ilett,
Stephanie Bennett, Aram Ghaemmaghami, Paul Smith and
Robert Inkpen
University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
Abstract
Drawing on survey and interview data collected in one police force area, this article
considers the varied impacts on police well-being arising during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Approximately one-third of police officers surveyed reported feeling less safe in their role
during the pandemic, and nearly half suffered increased anxiety. The toll on well-being
appears to be most acute for frontline officers and those with caring responsibilities, and
is strongly associated with increases in workload. The task of ‘repairing’well-being will
require detailed and sensitive consideration involving genuine efforts to hear the voice s of
those who have endured this prolonged tour of duty.
Keywords
Well-being, police, safety, working practices, frontline
Background
Despite being a regularly repeated phrase, there is perhaps more evidence than at other
times to suggest that policing and the policing environment are currently undergoing
significant change. Relatively, stable crime figures over long periods of this century have
hidden important changes to both crime types and the social harms associated with human
behaviour (Higgins and Hales, 2016). Policing demand has changed and stretched the
service in ways in which were perhaps difficult to predict. Police forces are tackling the
investigatory complexities and serious harms associated with child sexual exploitation,
Corresponding author:
Sarah Charman, University of Portsmouth, 141 High Street, Portsmouth PO1 2DZ, UK.
Email: sarah.charman@port.ac.uk
domestic and sexual abuse, human trafficking, organised crime and terrorism while at the
same time dealing with enormous increases in non–crime-related incidents which account
for 83% of all ‘command and control’calls received (College of Policing, 2015;NAO,
2018). The last decade has seen falling police numbers and declining police budgets; a
current Uplift programme to restore these numbers and a transformation of the education
and training provision for all new police officers was conducted. These challenges alone
have stretched the capacity and capability of police forces, with Her Majesty’s In-
spectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) raising a ‘deep red warning flag’(2017: 4) over the
impact of managing such demand.
Amidst this already threatening storm, in March 2020, the World Health Organisation
confirmed the COVID-19 disease as a global pandemic and England entered its first
national lockdown with the associated ‘stay at home’messaging to be enforced through
considering the impact of the pandemic upon the well-being of citizens has warned of high
levels (even clinically high) of suicidal thoughts and mental distress (Dawson and
Golijani-Moghaddam, 2020;O’Connor et al., 2020;Sibley et al., 2020).
A focus from policing bodies towards the mental health and well-being of its
workforce emerged before the COVID-19 pandemic. Oscar Kilo (the home of the Na-
tional Wellbeing Service) launched in 2017 and with it the Bluelight Wellbeing
Framework which operates as a tool for employer self-assessment (Kilo, nd), both de-
velopments with strong support and involvement across national policing bodies. These
initiatives built upon emerging concerns emanating from research suggesting that well-
being amongst police officers was lower than in other professions (Johnson et al., 2005;
MIND, 2016). For example, Police Federation surveys have found around 80% of officers
reported feelings of stress, low mood or anxiety with over 90% of these attributing this to
work or being exacerbated by work (Elliott-Davies and Houdmont, 2017;Elliott-Davies,
2018). This is in comparison with only 26% of the adult population attributing their
difficulties to work (Elliott-Davies, 2018). The prevalence of post-traumatic stress dis-
order and complex post-traumatic stress disorder amongst UK police officers also shows
higher levels than the international average (Brewin et al., 2020). The impact of these
feelings of stress, low mood and anxiety can be felt both individually and organisationally.
Individually, there is evidence of low levels of emotional energy and high levels of
disturbed sleep (Graham et al., 2020), self-blame (Edwards et al., 2021), somatization and
low self-esteem (Demou et al., 2020). Organisationally, evidence from 20 police forces in
England and Wales from 2008 to 2018 found the numbers of employees absent due to
psychological or mental ill health almost doubled from 4.72 to 8.82% with stress rep-
resenting over half of these cases (Cartwright and Roach, 2020).
A number of factors affect reported levels of well-being. Research indicates that while
high levels of support, a sense of belonging, fair and visible leadership and an affirming
environment were all positively related to psychological well-being (Birch et al., 2017;
Demou et al., 2020;Jackman et al., 2020;Ordon et al., 2019), the impact of rapid change,
not feeling valued, heavy workloads and the negative characteristics of organisational
cultures conversely had an adverse impact upon well-being (Demou et al., 2020;Hesketh
et al., 2017;Purba and Demou, 2019). There is also evidence to suggest that role and rank
Newiss et al. 89
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