Bacharel em Direito pela Universidade Federal do Pará. Pós-graduado lato sensu em Direito Penal e Processual Penal pela Universidade Cândido Mendes. Pós-graduado lato sensu em Direito Militar pela Universidade Cândido Mendes. Mestre em Segurança Pública pelo PPGSP da Universidade Federal do Pará.
Doutora em Psicologia pela Universidade de Brasília. Pós-doutora em Ciências da Reabilitação pela Universidade de Dortmund - Alemanha.
This article aims to organize and analyze Brazilian and international studies that investigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on police activities. An integrational review was used as a way of selecting the studies. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, twenty-six articles were selected, whose main results were the need for intervention and projects that focus on preserving the mental health of police officers, and the opportunity for police institutions to rethink their role in, and their relationship with the community. There is also a need to develop more research based on the impacts of COVID-19 on police activity.
O presente artigo tem como objetivo organizar e analisar os estudos nacionais e internacionais que investigam os impactos da pandemia de COVID-19 nas atividades policiais. Como forma metodológica de seleção dos estudos, adotou-se a revisão integrativa. Após a aplicação dos critérios de inclusão e exclusão resultou na seleção de 26 artigos, que apresentaram como principais resultados, a necessidade de intervenções e projetos voltados para preservação da saúde mental dos policiais e a oportunidade de as instituições policiais repensarem seu papel e relação com a comunidade. Verificou-se também a necessidade de desenvolvimento de mais pesquisas voltadas para os impactos do COVID-19 na atividade policial.
The pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, a virus with high mutation and
transmission rates, associated with a lack of vaccines, changed
interpersonal relationships worldwide. Health measures were recommended
to governments by the World Health Organization (WHO), in an attempt to
reduce transmission and infection rates (BEZERRA
Preventive measures, like wearing masks, social distancing and social
isolation, the use of hand sanitizer, and constantly washing food and
hands are new ways of behaving and habits that have had to be learned in
order to avoid the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Prolonging the use of
such preventive habits, however, will have negative consequences of a
physical and psychological order in individuals (BEZERRA
According to Bezerra
In addition to evidence that reveals the general impact on everyday lives, the pandemic also had an impact on professional activities. In this respect, it was necessary for individuals and organizations to adapt to the new rules for performing tasks, where working from home was the main solution found in many professions. Some professionals, however, found it impossible to work away from their traditional place of work because they are involved with essential activities, such as being on the front line in the fight against COVID-19, or because they guarantee basic supplies for human life. Informal workers were also deeply impacted by the pandemic, making it impossible for them to carry out their work without considerable exposure to the risk of contamination (MATTEI & HEINEN, 2020).
Among the professionals considered as being on the front line in the
fight against the pandemic were health professionals, immunology and
virology scientists, and public security professionals. In a systematic
review involving meta-analysis, Silva
In their integrational review, Teixeira
In a cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire with 332
medical doctors in Brazil, Brito-Marques
Like health professionals, police officers continued working during the pandemic and needed to develop appropriate techniques and responses to the challenges posed by COVID-19. The uniform police have no general protocol of health measures imposed by their managers that obliges them to comply with actions that guarantee their safety. The demands police officers face can compromise not just their professional activities, but also their physical and mental health.
These data are corroborated by the initial results found by Fernandes
& Lima (2021), whose work tried to understand the multiple meanings
and influences that compose the social representations of public
security professionals vis-à-vis the pandemic and the way in which it
has been faced in Brazil. Data analysis revealed that only 28.5% of
participating police officers reported having received training that
helped them face these new challenges. They also observed that only
12.5% of the state’s civil police officers and 17.2% of federal police
officers were aware of the booklets prepared by the
A good example of the new skills developed by police officers is population containment order to ensure the WHO health recommendations in preventing the transmission of COVID-19. It is up to police officers to maintain physical distance, and to avoid crowded places without any ventilation. When there is a high contamination rate, they also need to ensure social isolation and that the limitations of freedom to go out are enforced.
Security professionals have the duty to ensure public and legal order, the accomplishment of health measures, and the sensation of social peace (BRASIL, 1988; MINAYO & ADORNO, 2013). The bases of the tasks undertaken by the uniform police are: hierarchy and discipline, implementing a vast system of punishment and reward, and directly linked to perform the work (SPODE & MERLO, 2006). Uniform police officers’ activities include: enforcing public security policy; overt patrolling; ensuring a sense of social security; and maintaining public order by way of their technical-operational knowledge and instrumental tools inherent in supporting military activity (FRAGA, 2006).
These activities also have important peculiarities to be considered, such as the absence of any predetermined schedule, especially for the end of the shift, not having fixed labor hours, and the duty to be available 24 hours a day to the State (FRAGA, 2006). Besides specific questions concerning task accomplishment, there are also particular aspects of the activity itself, because police officers act against crime and violence in their daily routine, patrol at night, and on highways, provide support at events, and other activities (BERNARDINO & BERNARDINO, 2018).
According to Bernardino & Bernardino (2018), police officers live in a permanent state of stress that complicates the relationship and balance between their professional and personal lives. In research carried out with police officers who have a disability that was acquired as a result of their work activities, one of the participants pointed out that a true police officer is one who is available 24 hours by day, which creates difficulties when it comes to enjoying moments outside when he is not at work (DE CASTILHO LOPES & PEREIRA LEITE, 2015).
These aspects are inherent to police officers’ activities because they are stressors that have a direct influence on their professional tasks when they are associated with internal and external factors. According to Lipp & Malagris (2000, pp. 620), stress is “the reaction of an organism that has physical, psychological, mental, and hormonal components derived from the necessity of dealing with something that, at that moment, threatens mental or physical stability”. Lipp & Malagris (2000) also highlight that incentives and stressors are diverse, i.e. pain, fear, loss of a loved one, speaking in front of others, or even being promoted or having a child, in such a way that is not possible to ascribe the reaction trigger to any particular factor.
According to Matarazzo
Maskály
With regard to internal procedures, Maskály
Among the procedural changes, Maskály
According to Jones (2020), because of the exponential virus infection process, the uniform police officers’ responsibility for guaranteeing order and public health measures led to discussions about the legitimacy of the police. According to the author, the more legitimate the police officers are seen to be by the community, the more likely it is that the latter will comply with the isolation and social distancing measures that are imposed. On the other hand, the more illegitimate the police are perceived to be, the more likely the community will be to fail to comply with the measures.
Despite the essential nature of the activity carried out by uniform
police officers, and which poses risks to the lives of these
professionals, and to those working in the health area, little is known
about their experiences at the time of the pandemic. According to the
Violence Monitor - (NEV-USP and
On May 2020, the
Pará, a Brazilian state with 8,690,745 people (IBGE, 2010) has 14,236 full-time uniform police officers in fourteen regions in the state (Metropolitan Region of Belém, Santarém, Marabá, Castanhal, Tucuruí, Redenção, Paragominas, Capanema, Altamira, Abaetetuba, Itaituba, Salvaterra, Breves and São Félix do Xingu). According to the IBGE (2014), Pará is the worst northern state in terms of the ratio of police to inhabitants, with just one police officer for every 500 people, and a deficit of 51.42% compared to the number expected by the Basic Police Organization Law of Pará.
Considering the essential nature of police officers’ work and the risk to human life when exposed to coronavirus, the present study aims to organize and analyze Brazilian and international studies that have investigated the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This study chose to undertake an integrational review of the literature, because its methodological scope allows its analytical content to include experimental, non-experimental, empirical and theoretical studies(SOUZA; SILVA & CARVALHO, 2010). Its construction followed Ganong’s model (1987): 1) identification of the topic and selection of the main question of the research; 2) the establishment of inclusion and exclusion criteria; 3) recognition of pre-selected studies; 4) categorization of the selected studies, 5) analysis and interpretation of the results; and 6) presentation of the knowledge review.
The main question of this research is: What are the principal impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on uniform police activity, since they are in the front line, fighting against virus transmission?
The P.V.O. technique was used to define the search descriptors, which
is a variation of the PICO technique (RAMOS, 2015). “P” refers to the
descriptors that are related to participants/contexts/sources, which
were established as being “police officers”; “V” applies to the
variables/categories to be investigated, in this case “pandemic
impacts”; and “O” (outputs) are the expected results. “O” in this study
was the analysis of published articles (author's name, title, year of
publication), the objective nature (empirical or theoretical) of the
article, and the place where the research was undertaken. In applying
P.V.O., the following descriptors were selected:
Once the descriptors had been chosen, it was possible to build the
procedures needed for achieving the search strategies. Platforms like
The third step, the identification of pre-selected and selected studies, consisted of selecting articles after reading their titles and abstracts. Five criteria were chosen: 1) the terms must appear in the title; 2) they must have been published within the last two years; 3) they cannot be repeated; 4) they must be freely accessible; 5) they should pass blind peer review. The conclusion criteria adopted were: 1) dissertations and theses; 2) papers; 3) repeated journal articles; 4) they were not a research theme. The last step was to read the articles in full, according to Figure 1.
After the data research, twenty-six articles were selected and read. Data collection consisted of identifying the following information: (i) reference (author, article title, year of publication and published journal); (ii) purpose of the study (iii) nature of the article; (iv) location where the research was carried out. Chart 1 shows this information.
Chart 1 shows that studies produced on five continents were located:
North America, South America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Asia produced the
most studies about COVID-19 and police activity, with a total of ten,
most of them produced in India and China. Dai
Seven studies were produced in Europe. Raciborski
In Macedonia, Ristevska-Dimitrovska and Batic (2020) investigated
health workers, and police officers who were on the front line during
the pandemic, the prevalence of psychological problems and their
resilience level, and compared the results with those of the general
population. Data analysis revealed that Macedonian police officers did
not have psychological problems caused by the pandemic, which is the
opposite result of other studies (DEY
In North America, especially in the United States, four studies were
found, three of which are theoretical, with just one being empirical.
Ashby (2021) observed a decrease in the number of calls to the American
police emergency number. In line with Dey
Only three studies were found in South America, two of these in
Brazil and the other in Peru. Among the main findings, the notes made by
Alcadipani
Just two studies were found in Africa considering the police and
COVID-19, both of them in Nigeria. Okon
Of the twenty-six selected studies, eight of them are theoretical and
eighteen are empirical. In the theoretical studies Stogner
In general terms, the results revealed a problem that is little discussed in literature about the police profession. These theoretical and empirical studies, which investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on police activities, indicate the vulnerabilities that these professionals are exposed to in their daily routines. These vulnerabilities, however, increased in the face of the threats generated by the virus. Police officers’ fragility, as evidenced in the studies we reviewed, confirms the need for actions to protect police officers’ mental health when they are faced with the challenge of ensuring health protection measures, and the safety of society in general.
We observed that concern with officers during the pandemic was an object of interest of studies published in different countries, and we detected no prevalence of studies in either developed or underdeveloped countries.
For example, Indian studies pointed out that the country, which is
considered to be a developing one, informed of massive changes in the
duties of police officers, who became the guarantors of the lockdown
imposed by the Indian government. This led to changes in sleep patterns,
the development of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress, and
possible long term impacts on the professional and private lives of
police officers (DEY
The studies that involved police officers’ mental health indicated
the need for actions and projects for preserving mental health (DEY
Most of the studies were empirical, but there were also some
theoretical ones. This shows that these studies complement and reaffirm
the data and the conclusions reached by others. The profession of police
officer is potentially stressful due to its lack of predetermined labor
hours, the need to maintain public order, and the fight against crime
(HUANG
On the other hand, in addition to being more exposed to virus infection, police officers suffered an increase in their stress and anxiety levels, had to guarantee the lockdown orders, control crowds and escort ambulances. The fact is that with these new functions a discussion has arisen about police legitimacy, that is, whether police actions are seen as legitimate by citizens. Jones (2020) points to the need to incorporate the application of procedural justice in police actions, especially in the poorest communities, and in most cases this conflicts with recognition of the legitimacy of the conduct of the police.
Jones (2020) and White and Fradella (2020) theoretically present the same foundation of the empirical study developed by Aborisade (2021), which emphasizes the importance of the role of the police in preventing the spread of Coronavirus, as well as the need for applying procedural justice in all their actions, thereby ensuring their decisions are fair and humanitarian. Aborisade (2021) points out that the imposition of force, fear, and authoritarianism does not solve problems of police legitimacy; on the contrary, they will only increase tensions between the community and state agents. But the author also points out that the pandemic has allowed the police to reinvent themselves, which has resulted in benefits by way of positive interactions with society, which have facilitated compliance with the health guidelines and restrictions that the police aim to guarantee.
Alcadipani
Matarazzo
Therefore, given the results, it was found that such an institutional change will possibly be of more benefit than harm to the institution. There is a need, however, for articulation and cultural change in the police, so that they understand their "new" role, and are able to perform it more effectively and be accepted by the community. This is also of benefit to the police themselves, who may feel more comfortable taking care of their psychological and physical health, and there may possibly be more positive responses in the daily life of the profession.
The aim of this study was achieved, since it was possible, within the methodological limitations imposed, to present the main results of studies that focused on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on police activity, analyzing the main contributions and those places where the studies were undertaken. After analyzing the results, we found that there is a lack of academic production studying these impacts on police forces, but there were important contributions that draw attention to the need to prioritize mental health and redefine the attributions of the police in society.
Among the main limitations are the fact that few studies focus on the object being analyzed, and there is little information about the quality of the journals. The absence of Brazilian studies should also be mentioned, because this generated difficulties when it came to comparing the realities of other countries with the Brazilian reality.
Finally, there is a need for more research that focuses on the impacts of the pandemic on police activity, in the same proportion as the investigations carried out on the impacts of the pandemic on healthcare professionals, since, as well as being important, the police play a fundamental role at the forefront of confronting the COVID-19 pandemic.
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