How might the frequency of use of force or exposure to citizens’ resistant behaviors and the psychological health of police officers impact each other?

• In Event: POL Panel 8. Police officer experiences and mental health

Abstract

Literature on risk factors associated with mental health problems and police Use of Force (UF) is lacking in several aspects. Although the risk factors relating to the development of Common Mental Disorders (CMD) are well established, namely individual (e.g., neurotic traits), organizational (e.g., work overload) or operational (e.g., traumatic events exposure) factors (El Sayed et al., 2019), the UF is not clearly established as an operational factor. Moreover, while literature defines the main domains fostering UF (suspect, officer, encounter, and community characteristics), it does little to investigate how the officer’s CMDs may impact the UF (Bolger, 2015). This study aims to investigate association between frequency of UF or Citizen Resistant Behaviors Exposure (CRBE), and various CMDs (traumatic stress, PCL-5; burnout, MBI-GS; depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation, GHQ-28; substance use, ASSIST). These variables were collected among 176 police officers from several Belgian police departments (72.7% policemen; MeanAge = 43.26; SD = 10.02; MeanLength of professional experience = 18.78; SD = 10.57) using a broad online survey investigating psychological health and its risk factors. Main results indicate a restricted number of correlations between UF/CRBE and CMDs. Overall, when correlations are observed, they are positive but weak. Specifically, traumatic stress is most frequently associated with the use of soft- and hard-empty hand techniques and chemical-irritant sprays as well as passive to non-lethal aggressive resistance (ρ = .16 to .22). Anxiety was also correlated with the use of chemical-irritant sprays or projectile launchers and with passive and active resistance (ρ = .15 to .25). No significant correlation was found between UF/CRBE and suicidal ideation, substance use or burnout depersonalization symptoms. These preliminary results suggest UF/CRBE and CMDs are relatively distant risk factors, implying further investigation of their association with operational risk factors. These results will be discussed in the light of the international literature.

Authors

• Emilie Telle, University of Mons

• Arthur Dehon, University of Mons

• Audrey Vicenzutto, University of Mons

• Thierry Pham, University of Mons