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Purpose – We investigate the impact of overlapping crises of COVID-19 and the George Floyd protests on one major US police department, focusing on staffing and officer proactivity.

Methodology/Approach – The study investigates the impact of the two crises on operational capacity. Using Bayesian interrupted time-series analysis, the authors investigate if officer proactivity levels were adversely impacted in the short and long terms.

Findings – A statewide stay-at-home order (SAHO) was associated with a sharp decline in proactive contacts, but that effect dissipated quickly. However, the Floyd protests were associated with a sharp decline in proactivity, which persisted throughout the study period.

Originality/Value – The findings of this study contribute to ongoing research agendas that seek to understand the impact of dual, overlapping crises on US police departments and the communities they serve. The authors demonstrate a methodological approach capable of disentangling both crises’ effects on police activity levels.

Past research indicates that increasing police arrests deters crime. However, little research exists on how restricting police arrests affects crime. The purpose of this paper is to test whether restrictions on police authority to arrest affects deterrence and crime rates.

The data consisted of crime statistics for 105 criminal suspects from a medium-sized police department in the western USA. A 2×4 mixed analysis of variance compared the suspects’ criminal activity for a four-month period before and after the arrest restrictions were imposed to ascertain how they affected deterrence and crime rates.

The restrictions on police arrests significantly increased the crime rate. Moreover, the crime rate increased the longer the restrictions on police arrest authority were in effect. In sum, the present study provides empirical support for the hypothesis that restrictions on police arrest authority decrease deterrence and increase the crime rate.

The present study suggests that restrictions on police arrest authority decreases deterrence and may significantly increase the crime rate. The restrictions may also have deleterious effects on police departments. Several states have recently imposed restrictions on police authority to arrest, and many other states are considering implementing such restrictions. Policy makers should carefully consider the results of the present study before implementing these policies.

The study fills a void in the crime literature by demonstrating that restrictions on police authority to arrest can decrease deterrence and increase the crime rate.

The past five years have seen a growth in studies of police body-worn cameras (BWCs). A large share of the research focused on individual officer attitudes toward these new law enforcement tools. The scholarship, however, focused almost exclusively on their positive and negative perceptions of body cameras or correlations between those attitudes and general officer characteristics. This study examined whether the influence of negative or “concerning” policing attitudes toward body cameras is mediated by other variables, such as officer outlooks toward law enforcement, officers' perceptions of citizen cooperation or their opinions of the public.

An online survey was distributed to a convenience sample of police offices from two Northeastern police agencies.

Findings indicate that the relationship between experience and concerning perceptions of body cameras is mediated by distrust in citizens and perceived civilian cooperation. Further, an office's outlooks regarding aggressive law enforcement tactics do not have a direct effect on concerning perceptions of body cameras, nor do they serve as a mediator between years of experience and concerning perceptions of body cameras.

Findings uncover the nuance and complexity of studying and understanding police officer outlooks and perceptions of BWCs. Future experimental designs should include general outlook measures.

The authors explore how service workers negotiate emotional laboring with “dirty” emotions while trying to meet the demands of neoliberal healthcare. In doing so, the authors theorize emotional labor in the context of healthcare as a type of embodied and emotional “dirty” work.

The authors apply interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to their data collected from National Health Service (NHS) workers in the United Kingdom (UK).

The authors’ data show that healthcare service workers absorb, contain and quarantine emotional “dirt”, thereby protecting their organization at a cost to their own well-being. Workers also perform embodied practices to try to absolve themselves of their “dirty” labor.

The authors extend research on emotional “dirty” work and theorize that emotional labor can also be conceptualized as “dirty” work. Further, the authors show that emotionally laboring with “dirty” emotions is an embodied phenomenon, which involves workers absorbing and containing patients' emotional “dirt” to protect the institution (at the expense of their well-being).

The police often respond to persons who are not in direct violation of the law, but are rather undergoing behavioral crises due to mental illness or substance abuse disorders. The purpose of this study is to examine how police behavior influences civilian bystanders' emotional responses and perceptions of procedural justice (PPJ) when officers interact with these populations, which traditionally have been stigmatized in American culture.

Using a factorial vignette approach, the authors investigate whether perceived public stigma moderates the relationship between police behaviors (i.e. CIT tactics, use of force) and PPJ. The authors also investigate whether emotional reactions mediate the relationship between police behaviors and PPJ.

Regardless of suspect population (mental illness, substance use), use of force decreased participants' PPJ, and use of CIT tactics increased PPJ. These effects were consistently mediated by anger, but not by fear. Interactive effects of police behavior and perceived public stigma on PPJ were mixed.

Fear and anger may operate differently as antecedents to PPJ. Officers should note using force on persons in behavioral crisis, even if legally justifiable, seems to decrease PPJ. They should weigh this cost pragmatically, alongside other circumstances, when making discretionary decisions about physically engaging with a person in crisis.

This study explored the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on rural municipal police in Pennsylvania.

The authors surveyed rural police chiefs and sworn officers to inquire about their intra-department organizational capabilities, police-community relations, well-being practices, and how these strategies may have developed since March 2020.

The pandemic affected rural police officers and rural policing strategies in many ways. Moreover, existing challenges to limited rural police budgets were exacerbated suggesting a need for more flexible budgetary capacities, access to wellness resources were limited suggesting better access to these resources and preparation for responding to public health emergencies was limited suggesting more complete training is warranted.

This study draws attention to the unique experiences of rural municipal police across one state by capturing specific areas of concern throughout the coronavirus pandemic.