The weaponising of COVID-19: Contamination prevention and the use of spit hoods in UK policing
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X211018787 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The weaponising of
COVID-19: Contamination
prevention and the use of
spit hoods in UK policing
Camilla De Camargo
Department of Criminology and Sociology, Kingston University,
Kingston-Upon-Thames, UK
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a radically changed world for everyone, but its
effects on police officers has been particularly acute. Officers have been subject to
increased cough and spit attacks as offenders have sought to weaponise the coronavirus,
and forces have responded by encouraging officers to use enhanced methods of con-
tamination prevention. The controversial argument of whether using ‘spit hoods’ is a
necessary tool in policing has been resurrected, although evidence of their ineffective-
ness in the fight against COVID-19 has been brought to light more recently. Drawing on
interview data obtained from 18 police officers in 11 UK forces over the summer of
2020, this article draws on interview narratives discussing contamination prevention,
policing the pandemic, and the use of spit hoods.
Keywords
Coronavirus, COVID-19, policing, police, spit hoods, contamination
Introduction
At the end of December 2019, the first cases o f an unusual pneumonia strain were
reported in Wuhan, China; 1 week later, the coronavirus was genetically sequenced and
became known as the respiratory disease ‘COVID-19’ (WHO, 2020a). At the time of
publication, there were over 160 million active COVID-19 cases and more than 3.3
Corresponding author:
Camilla De Camargo, Department of Criminology and Sociology, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road,
Kingston-Upon-Thames KT1 1LQ, UK.
Email: c.decamargo@kingston.ac.uk
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
ªThe Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X211018787
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2022, Vol. 95(4) 595–616
596 The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles 95(4)
million deaths worldwide. The risk of contracting COVID-19 has been very concerning
for those working on the front-line, and anxiety is arguably higher for those working in
countries where the virus has taken a stronger hold, and transmission is more likely. The
UK for instance, has one of the highest COVID-19 death rates per capita in the world and
is currently in sixth place behind the US, India, Brazil, France and Russia. The corona-
virus pandemic has redefined life globally and brought new challenges and hazards to
policing. There is a large body of literature discussing how policing is regarded as one of
the most stressful occupations and poses a serious challenge to the psychological well-
being of its workers (Elliot-Davies, 2021; Fielding et al., 2018; Liberman et al., 2002)
even before the pandemic. Although it is well established that organisational factors
contribute to police stress (workload, inadequate supervisor support etcetera), effective
and supportive responses to officers have been the focus of more recent research (Bul-
lock and Garland, 2018, 2020; Fielding et al., 2018). Perceptions of danger may be
useful in policing because it forces officers to undertake protective working practices
to avoid contamination from the clientele that the police interact with on a daily basis,
such as the use of spit hoods to avoid disease and virus transmission (De Camargo,
2019). Front-line police officers are regularly subject to physical abuse; there were
30,000 assaults on British officers in 2019–2020 (ONS, 2020), and it is reported that
the most dangerous part of the job may well be psychological and not physical (Fielding
et al., 2018). A recent survey (published February 2021) which was completed by 12,471
Police Federation members during the COVID-19 pandemic, found that mental health
and well-being issues affected 77%of serving officers, with the majority of these (90%)
indicating psychological difficulties which had been caused, or made worse, by working
in policing (Elliot-Davies, 2021).
During the pandemic the police have faced an impossible task in that they face an
invisible disease which regularly presents asymptomatic, as well as facing the ‘usual’
hazards from morewell-known viruses, diseasesand ailments. The use of personalprotec-
tive equipment(PPE) has always formed an important part of a police officer’s toolkit(De
Camargo, 2019) and The Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) is the primary legislation
regarding occupational healthand safety in the UK and requiresthe employer to ensure, so
far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of all its employees (see
Section 2 of theAct). PPE is defined as equipmentand clothing designed to protectagainst
an identified hazard, and when the hazard cannot be eliminated or controlled to a safe
workinglevel, PPE is used to bringthe risk down to a minimum (HSE,2020). Contamination
prevention has become even more important during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in
addition to PPE,one of the ways in which police officersreduce the risk of contamination
is the use of spit hoods (also known as spit guards, spit mesh, or meshhood).
The use of spit hoods was approved by the Association of Chi ef Police Officers
(ACPO) in 2007; 32 of 43 forces were using them by 2018 (Gyford, 2018), but their
reception has been the subject of heated debate within policing circles and the media.
Hooding has been described as ‘degrading’ (Davenport, 2019), ‘cruel and dangerous’
(Sheerin, 2017), ‘primitive’, ‘inspir[ing] fear and anguish’ (Geoghegan, 2016: 9) an d
‘reminiscent of hoods used at Guantanamo Bay’ (Dodd, 2016; see also Hales, 2016). In
February 2019, The Metropolitan Police’s New Scotland Yard announced the roll-out of
spit hoods in London; prior to the pandemic a Metropolitan Police Federation study
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