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Previous research on community attitudes toward the police focuses on suspect race as an important predictor of attitudes toward law enforcement and police use of force. Generally, missing from these studies, however, is the role of mental illness, both independently and in conjunction with race, and its effect on perceptions of police. This chapter summarizes our recent research addressing two issues: (1) how race and mental illness of suspects affect perceptions of the appropriateness of police use of force, and (2) how race and mental illness of citizens affect perceptions of police.

We examine these issues by summarizing research obtained through The Portland Race and Mental Illness Project (PRMIP), a survey administered to residents of Portland, Oregon. For our first topic, we use an experimental vignette that randomly alters race and mental health status of suspects. For our second topic, we ask respondents to self-report race, mental health status, and perceptions of the police.

Our dual focus provides two key findings: first, citizens’ perceptions of police use of force are affected by suspect race and mental health status. Second, like Black citizens, citizens with mental illness also have a negative impression of law enforcement.

Our research builds on research indicating racial disparity in trust in police by showing that mental illness – both that of the respondent and that of a suspect – affects attitudes toward the police. These results suggest that mental health status affects attitudes toward law enforcement and should be considered in future research and public policy.

Work-life challenges experienced by employees navigating pregnancy, maternity, and parenting young children are well documented in the literature. Correspondingly, work-life balance policies and provisions aimed at supporting affected staff are well established in many modern organizations. Within this agenda however, complications within maternity journeys, and specifically the intersection with mental health has been neglected. In this chapter, we consider the work-life issues associated with perinatal (pregnancy and post-birth) mental illness. After introducing perinatal mental illness, and its impact on individuals and families, we consider the two-way relationship between illness and work: how employment factors influence the development of perinatal mental illness and recovery trajectories, with implications for family life; and how such illnesses impact work and employment. We offer key insights from our empirical research on this topic in the context of UK policing, highlighting challenges linked to the nature of police work and organization culture, and issues that are more broadly applicable to how maternity and mental illness are treated in the workplace. The chapter offers recommendations for people management practice aimed at reducing or mitigating occupational factors that exacerbate illness and maximizing those facilitating recovery in the perinatal period and beyond, thus advancing work-life inclusion.

Large numbers of adults with mental illness detained by police, seen in the courts, and confined in prisons and jails has been a longstanding concern of officials in the mental health and criminal justice systems. Diversion programs represent an important strategy to counteract the criminalization of persons with mental illness. The challenge is to identify and integrate resources in such a way that an organization bridging the police, courts, mental health, substance abuse, homelessness, welfare and entitlements agencies would evolve that would effectively and appropriately serve offenders with mental health issues, keeping them stable in the community and reducing recidivism.

This chapter examines the connections between systemic police terror, solidarity, collective consciousness, emotion work, and negative health outcomes for black Americans. While much social science and criminological research has focused on police brutality and the black male without much consideration of the collective effects of police violence on communities of color, we shift the conversation from brutality to systemic terror by incorporating the cumulative and collective effects policing has on communities of color, beyond those directly victimized via interactions with the police. In this chapter, we introduce and theorize about the deeper connections between policing, black communities, and emotional labor and the relationship(s) these factors have on negative health outcomes.

Purpose: A psychiatric illness called burnout is caused by emotional tiredness, cynicism, and a decreased sense of personal accomplishment. For police officers to handle and adjust to difficult, stressful, and sometimes traumatic events, resilience or recovery during downtime are considered critical capacities. The study aims to investigate the association between resilience or recovery experiences and job burnout among police officers and to ascertain if recovery experiences during off-job time can lessen the harmful impacts of burnout.

Design/methodology: The data were gathered from police officers in the South zone of Kerala state using a structured questionnaire. The police force may have favourable effects on economic development if it embraces resilience-building concepts and develops into a more resilient enterprise. The study used convenience sampling, and the researchers received 300 responses. Karl Pearson correlation and simple regression analysis are used to test hypotheses.

Findings: Findings suggest an association between burnout and resilience or recovery experience measures during off-job time among police officers in Kerala. It is found that recovery experiences can buffer the adverse effects of job stress and burnout.

Practical implications: The results of this study could guide the design of initiatives and programmes that enhance police officers’ performance and satisfaction while also encouraging their general well-being. To further reduce police burnout, implement a programme that aims to improve occupational stress recovery at the organisational level.

Originality/value: It is crucial to evaluate police officers’ burnout and its relationship to resiliency or recovery in their spare time. This study offers unique insights into certain off-the-job behaviours or activities that link to lower levels of burnout; this information could guide programmes or interventions intended to help police personnel.

This chapter is set within global public sector reform processes, as policing is part of public service delivery. It explores the question of who is “vulnerable”, how vulnerability is assessed, and why? It considers the measurement of vulnerability, and how this influences policing practice and the role of the Police in contemporary policing.

The research is qualitative in nature and reliant on interview and documentary source data. It draws on concepts such as resilience, co-production, professionalisation and training as organising themes in which to make sense of how we reimagine the management of Vulnerability and the demands they place at the “core, the heart and the centre” of policing today.

Police management in the UK are attempting to stay true to the Peelian Principle of police efficiency alongside balancing the changing remit of what they have to contend with on a day-to-day basis – this is the paradox. Both Vulnerability and Risk are demonstrated to be increasingly interconnected alongside the developments of public health policing in the UK and elsewhere. Collectively, these concepts help to examine an increasingly complex landscape for the police to manoeuvre within, as they respond to a myriad of competing demands on services.

Vulnerability is the core, the heart and the centre of meaningful human experiences. With increasing pressures on resources, political scrutiny and changing roles and responsibilities, the police as an organisation (both in the UK and internationally) are increasingly responding to competing demands for their service. These demands are represented in this chapter as a paradox of change.

There are racial differences in policing and treatment when people are stopped for the same crimes, and scholars have long documented and expressed concern regarding the police’s reactions to Black men. In this paper, we argue that racism is the root cause of police-involved killings of unarmed Black men. Utilizing several contemporary examples, we articulate the ways racism operates through cultural forces and institutional mechanisms to illustrate how this phenomenon lies at the intersection of public safety and public health. Thus, we begin by defining racism and describing how it is gendered to move the notion that the victims of police involved shootings overwhelmingly tend to be Black men from the margins of the explanation of the patterns to the center. Next, we discuss how the police have been used to promote public safety and public health throughout US history. We conclude by describing common explanations for contemporary police-involved shootings of unarmed Black males and why those arguments are flawed. Reframing the phenomena as gendered racism is critical for identifying points of intervention. Because neither intent nor purpose is a prerequisite of the ways that racism affects public safety and public health, the differential impact of policies and programs along racial lines is sufficient for racism to be a useful way to frame this pattern of outcomes. Incorporating gender into this framing of racism introduces that ways that Black men have been viewed, stereotyped, and treated implicitly in institutional practices and explicitly in institutional policies.

This chapter discusses the experiences of black men who encounter the phenomena of a mental health diagnosis, detention and death in a forensic setting in England. Although there are black women with mental health issues who have also died in forensic settings, the occurrence is significantly higher for men who become demonised as ‘Big, Black, Bad and dangerous’. The author discusses the historical over representation of mental ill health amongst black people in the general community and the plethora or reasons attributed to this. The author then discusses the various points of entry into the criminal justice system, where black men with mental health issues are over represented. The author explores some inquiries into the deaths of black men in custody and the recommendations that were subsequently made, which successive governments have failed to act upon. The author argues that the term ‘Institutional Racism’ is insufficient to explain this phenomenon; and offers her own theoretical interpretation which is a combination of systemic racism influenced by post-colonial conceptualisation

The aim of this article is an analysis of the links between race and psychotic illness, psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, as well as psychiatric, police and prison violence against people with mental health problems. The analysis focuses on Black men who are more frequently diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders and who face more brutal treatment than other people with such diagnoses. We have adopted a multidisciplinary approach which draws insights from psychiatry, psychology, and sociology and challenges the biologistic interpretation of “mental illness.” We take into account the United States and Britain – two countries with large Black minorities and an established tradition of research on these groups. Among the crucial findings of this study are the facts that racial bias and stereotypes heavily influence the way Black men with a diagnosis of psychotic illness are treated by the psychiatric system, police and prison staff, and that the dominant approach to psychosis masks the connections between racism and mental health.