Journal of Criminal Justice 72 (2021) 101756

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Journal of Criminal Justice

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jcrimjus

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on European police officers: Stress,

demands, and coping resources
Marie Ottilie Frenkel a, 1, Laura Giessing a, *, 1, Sebastian Egger-Lampl b, Vana Hutter c, Raoul R.
D. Oudejans c, d, Lisanne Kleygrewe c, Emma Jaspaert e, Henning Plessner a
a
Institute for Sport and Sport Sciences, Heidelberg University, Germany
b
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Austria
c
Department of Human Movement Sciences, Amsterdam Movement Sciences and Institute for Brain and Behaviour Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the
Netherlands
d
Faculty of Sports and Nutrition, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands
e
Leuven Institute of Criminology, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law, KU Leuven, Belgium

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Purpose: Facing the COVID-19 pandemic, police officers are confronted with various novel challenges, which
COVID-19 might place additional strain on officers. This mixed-method study investigated officers’ strain over a three-
ssstress month-period after the lockdown.
coping
Methods: In an online survey, 2567 police officers (77% male) from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the
crisis management
pandemics
Netherlands, and Spain participated at three measurement points per country in spring, 2020. Three-level growth
law enforcement curve models assessed changes in strain and its relation to stressor appraisal, emotion regulation, and pre­
paredness through training. To add context to the findings, free response answers about officers’ main tasks,
stressors, and crisis measures were coded inductively.
Results: On average, officers seemed to tolerate the pandemic with slight decreases in strain over time. Despite
substantial variance between countries, 66% of the variance occurred between individuals. Sex, work experience,
stressor appraisal, emotion regulation, and preparedness significantly predicted strain. Risk of infection and
deficient communication emerged as main stressors. Officers’ reports allowed to derive implications for
governmental, organizational, and individual coping strategies during pandemics.
Conclusion: Preparing for a pandemic requires three primary paths: 1) enacting unambiguous laws and increasing
public compliance through media communication, 2) being logistically prepared, and 3) improving stress
regulation skills in police training.

While most critical, highly threatening police incidents, such as numerous alterations in policing protocols (Stogner, Miller, & McLean,
terrorism, only impact a limited geographic area for a short time, the 2020). All of those may lead to uncertain or potentially stressful situa­
COVID-19 pandemic has spread globally and has continued to be a tions, in which officers are still expected to decide and act appropriately.
public health emergency for an extended period of time. During pan­ As such, it is critical to quantify the scope of the impact of the COVID-19
demics, law enforcement agencies (LEAs) play a crucial role in the effort pandemic on officers in order to justify and properly target resources
to control the spreading of the disease, maintaining public order and that allow LEAs and officers to cope with the pandemic (Stogner et al.,
promoting safer communities. In order to protect the health of residents, 2020). The present study investigated (1) the working demands police
unprecedented strict governmental measures have been enacted. In their officers face, (2) the perceived individual, organizational, and govern­
responsibility to enforce these measures, street patrol officers are con­ mental resources to meet these demands, and (3) how they interact to
fronted with various challenges: the constant risk of infection, changing determine the strain of the pandemic on police officers. These insights
governmental measures leading to a shift in calls for services, and are intended to inform, update, and improve police leaders’ and policy

* Corresponding author
E-mail address: laura.giessing@issw.uni-heidelberg.de (L. Giessing).
1
These authors contributed equally to this work.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2020.101756
Received 19 August 2020; Received in revised form 16 October 2020; Accepted 16 October 2020
Available online 19 October 2020
0047-2352/© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
M.O. Frenkel et al. Journal of Criminal Justice 72 (2021) 101756

makers’ understanding of preventive training and effective crisis man­ general work stress associated with the occupation. While all of these
agement in pandemics to ensure that LEAs can continue to provide demands are described as potentially stressful in the literature (Drake &
community services while protecting police officers’ health and well- Altheimer, 2020; Jennings & Perez, 2020; Milliard & Papazoglou, 2020;
being. Stogner et al., 2020), targeted crisis management should primarily
According to the Transactional Stress Theory (Lazarus & Folkman, address those that are perceived as threatening by the officers, thus
1984), stress results from the individual’s perception of a discrepancy taking their lived experience into account.
between the environmental demands placed on him/her and his/her Despite all the potential stressors, the availability of coping resources
coping resources present in a particular situation. In this cognitive will determine whether they result in higher stress levels than usual or
appraisal process, the individual judges on the one hand the stressful­ not. Emotion regulation is an essential individual coping resource to be
ness of the environmental demands (the so-called stressors) and on the considered in this context. Adaptive emotion regulation strategies (e.g.,
other hand the availability and effectiveness of coping resources to meet reappraisal) have been shown to decrease negative affect and increase
these demands. When the individual perceives the stressors as exceeding positive affect, while maladaptive strategies (e.g., suppression) increase
his/her coping resources, a negative, unpleasant psychological state of negative affect and decrease positive affect (Brans, Koval, Verduyn, &
stress ensues, commonly accompanied by fatigue (Doerr et al., 2015; Lim, 2013; Katana, Röcke, Spain, & Allemand, 2019; Richardson, 2017).
Strahler & Luft, 2019) and deterioration in mood (Giessing et al., 2019; In the context of emotion regulation of work stress, work experience has
Lieberman et al., 2016; Schlotz, 2019). In this sense, the central mech­ been found to decrease perceived stress and increase related well-being
anism posited in the Transactional Stress Theory (Lazarus & Folkman, (Katana et al., 2019) and stress reactivity to police incidents (Landman,
1984) shows similarities to the mechanism proposed by the General Nieuwenhuys, & Oudejans, 2016). When considering individual differ­
Strain Theory (GST; Agnew, 1992), which explains why individuals ences, the COVID-19 pandemic might differentially affect stress levels of
might engage in deviant behaviour. In both accounts, adverse environ­ men and women as there are large gender differences in police stress in
mental demands (e.g., failure to achieve a goal, the removal of positive general (Violanti et al., 2016) and in response to the 9/11 terrorist attack
stimuli or the exposure to negative stimuli) lead to stress or strain in the (Bowler et al., 2010), with women being more stressed. Identification of
absence of adequate coping strategies. Importantly, the appraisal of the governmental, organizational and individual characteristics and be­
stressors and coping resources is constantly updated and may change haviours linked to successful coping is needed so that the actions can be
rapidly dependent on the circumstances (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). replicated by other LEAs and officers. More importantly, an under­
Besides the well-known stressors in police work (Giessing et al., standing of vulnerable officers and lacking coping resources can assist
2019; Violanti et al., 2016; Violanti & Aron, 1995), the COVID-19 LEAs in directing resources towards their officers in most need (Stogner
pandemic places a high number of novel environmental demands on et al., 2020).
police officers. Most obvious, the risk of infection with COVID-19 is an Officers are expected and trained to respond to danger and crises.
additional threat that jeopardizes officers’ health and lives (Drake & Therefore, police training should have equipped them with necessary
Altheimer, 2020; Jennings & Perez, 2020; Milliard & Papazoglou, 2020; coping resources to resolve crisis situations effectively (Milliard &
Stogner et al., 2020). Due to the nature of police work, officers need to Papazoglou, 2020). Additionally, governments and police organizations
be physically present in order to serve and protect communities. During have introduced legal decrees and procedures to meet the demands of
their shift, they come into contact with a large number of colleagues and the pandemic (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control,
civilians, whose COVID-19 status is often unknown, requiring officers to 2020; International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), 2020; Jen­
be increasingly hypervigilant of their environment (Stogner et al., nings & Perez, 2020). While some of these measures may be helpful,
2020). Moreover, critical tasks (e.g., arrests) require them to violate they might also have detrimental effects on officers’ productivity and
guidelines on social distancing, increasing the risk of infections. At the well-being. Constantly altered safety protocols and policies might limit
same time, police officers face new types of threatening and hazardous officers’ attention and complicate interaction with civilians (e.g., PPE
behaviour by assailants through intentional contamination, such as may impair field of vision, breathing, and grip on objects; Stogner et al.,
spitting attacks (Jennings & Perez, 2020). While personal protective 2020).
equipment (PPE) could reduce the risk of infection, the sufficient Since the police carries great responsibility in the effort to control the
availability of appropriate PPE – even for critical infrastructure - was spread of COVID-19, effective management of the demands of the
uncertain at the outbreak of the pandemic (Sim, 2020; Stogner et al., pandemic is crucial to protect police officers’ functioning, well-being,
2020). Naturally, the number of infected or self-quarantined officers was and health. Given that stress can have tremendous consequences on
predicted to increase over the course of the pandemic, which might performance (Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2017) and health (McEwen &
result in staff shortage and higher workload for those left in the work Stellar, 1993), one approach to safely lead police officers through the
force (Drake & Altheimer, 2020; Milliard & Papazoglou, 2020). As a pandemic is to reduce their strain by strengthening their coping re­
result, and to prevent spreading within the police force, shift schedules sources. So far, stressors and avenues for providing officer support have
and working hours have been adjusted (Jennings & Perez, 2020). In only narratively been discussed in the literature, but no empirical data
European countries, LEAs have transitioned their personnel to work has been collected (Jennings & Perez, 2020; Milliard & Papazoglou,
remotely if possible, instituted a 50/50 work plan to keep two groups 2020; Stogner et al., 2020). The present study aimed at filling this
within each department completely separate from each other, and sus­ research gap by exploring the relationship between police officers’ work
pended in-service training (e.g., in Austria, Germany, and the stressors, coping resources, and stress during the pandemic. Police of­
Netherlands). Additionally, the public health measures put in place by ficers’ perceived stress, mood, and fatigue (collectively representing the
the governments have created novel tasks and procedures that needed to strain they experience) were repeatedly measured throughout a 11-week
be implemented by the police officers at short notice (Stogner et al., period during the COVID-19 pandemic to reveal how officers were
2020). These governmental measures have also led to a shift in crime coping at each specific time point. At the outbreak of COVID-19, the
and service (e.g., “criminalizing” common behaviours such as gathering development of the pandemic as stressor as well as the effectiveness of
with friends; Campedelli, Aziani, & Favarin, 2003; Mohler et al., 2020). the governmental, organizational and individual measures as coping re­
In this context, officers are more likely to experience high-stress en­ sources were unclear. Therefore, we hypothesized that officers’ strain
counters with anxious or intransigent individuals aggravated by the fear would vary over the course of the pandemic (hypothesis 1). While all
of contagion, economic uncertainty, and isolation, especially since the European countries have been impacted by COVID-19, governmental
new policies have been challenged on political, economic, and legal measures and their timelines to contain the spread of the Severe Acute
grounds (Stogner et al., 2020). Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic is Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) differed among
hypothesized to be a significant stressor for officers compounding the countries (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 2020).

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M.O. Frenkel et al. Journal of Criminal Justice 72 (2021) 101756

Therefore, it was assumed that officers’ strain varies between countries Table 1
(hypothesis 2). Previous research has suggested interindividual differ­ Study timeline and date of lockdown in each country.
ences in police officers’ stress reactivity based on sex (Bowler et al., Lockdown t1 27 March t2 17 April t3 08 May t4 29 May
2010; Violanti et al., 2016) and work experience (Landman, Nieu­ to 02 April to 23 to 14 to 05
wenhuys, & Oudejans, 2016). Therefore, we assumed that women would 2020 April May June
2020 2020 2020
report higher stress levels than men (hypothesis 3), while work experi­
ence would reduce stress responses (hypothesis 4). Building on the stress Austria 16 March Day 11 to Day 32 to Day 53 to
model (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), time-variant differences in the 2020 17 38 59
Germany 23 March Day 4 to 10 Day 25 to Day 46 to
appraisal of the stressors as well as the effectiveness of coping resources 2020 31 52
will also impact officers’ strain. We assumed that negative stressor Switzerland 14 March Day 34 to Day 55 to Day 75 to
appraisal of the pandemic would increase officers’ strain (hypothesis 5). 2020 40 61 81
Addressing the appraisal of coping resources, we hypothesized that Netherlands 12 March Day 36 to
2020 42
feelings of preparedness through training would decrease strain during
Spain 13 March Day 35 to Day 56 to Day 76 to
the pandemic (hypothesis 6). Additionally, emotion regulation as a po­ 2020 41 62 82
tential coping resource has been shown to influence work stress in other
contexts (Katana et al., 2019). Therefore, we assumed that maladaptive
emotion regulation would increase officers’ strain, whereas adaptive Euskid participated, respectively. Demographics of the sample in each
emotion regulation would decrease strain (hypothesis 7). country can be found in Table 2.
For a proper understanding of the underlying causes and mecha­ The Social and Societal Ethics Committee of the KU Leuven provided
nisms of the strain police officers experienced during the pandemic, it is ethical approval for this study (approval number: G-2019 081712).
essential to include context to the quantitative analyses. Insights into the Informed consent was obtained from the participating officers. Partici­
lived experience of police officers throughout the unprecedented times pants received no financial compensation.
of COVID-19 measures are indispensable to arrive at an understanding
of, and recommendations for, police work in times of a pandemic. We 1.2. Measures
therefore augmented our study by incorporating open-ended questions
to gain a more in-depth understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 To ensure high participation rates and to keep interference with
pandemic on police officers’ lives. We were especially interested in official duties minimal, the survey was kept as short as possible.
exploring the following questions to derive evidence-based recommen­ Therefore, questionnaires originally developed for ecological momen­
dations for effective crisis management in European LEAs: tary assessment and a few self-drafted quantitative single items were
used. Acknowledging the explorative nature of the study, several open,
(1) What are officers’ main tasks during the pandemic? Which work free response questions allowed participants to share the full range of
demands do police officers perceive as stressful? their current experiences. All measures were translated into the
(2) Which individual, organizational and governmental coping re­ respective language of each country. The completion of the question­
sources do police officers perceive as effective? In which areas do naire took on average 10–12 min.
they perceive a lack of coping resources?
1.2.1. Quantitative measures
Perceived stress was measured using the single item „During the last
1. Method week, I felt stressed out“, rated with a Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at
all) to 7 (very).
The observational study was conducted in six LEAs in five European Fati was measured using the single item „During the last week, I felt
countries (Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Spain/ fatigued“, rated with a Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very).
region Euskadi) during the COVID-19 pandemic from March 27, 2020 to Participants’ mood was measured by a six-item short version of the
June 5, 2020. LEAs were recruited through a consortium and its net­ German Multidimensional Mood Questionnaire (Wilhelm & Schoebi,
works of an EU Horizon 2020 project that includes multiple European 2007). The items represent three bipolar scales of valence, energy, and
LEAs and investigates the feasibility of virtual reality in police training calmness [unwell–well (V+), content–discontent (V–), tired–awake
(i.e., SHOTPROS, https://shotpros.eu). To examine a large, diverse (E+), full of energy–without energy (E–), agitated–calm (C+), relax­
sample of officers, the participating LEAs widely distributed the survey ed–tense (C–)]. Structural validity, sensitivity to change and reliability
online through mailing lists using SoSci Survey (www.soscisurvey.de). has been reported for this short scale (Wilhelm & Schoebi, 2007).
In a longitudinal approach, each LEA participated at three measurement Stressor appraisal of COVID-19 was measured by four self-drafted
waves with a survey period of one week and two weeks between the items. Participants were asked to what extent they perceived the
survey periods. Due to internal approval procedures, LEAs started the COVID-19 crisis as stressful, challenging, controllable, and threatening on a
online survey at different measurement points. A detailed timeline of all scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very). A total average score was calculated
participating countries can be found in Table 1. with one item being reverse coded (i.e., controllable). The internal con­
sistency was acceptable for all four measurement points (α > 0.71).
1.1. Participants The use of emotion regulation strategies was assessed by six items, each
representing one emotion regulation strategy (Brans et al., 2013): „I
Overall, 2567 police officers (77% male) participated in at least one have calmly reflected on my feelings“ (reflection), „I have changed the
measurement point of the online survey. Participants were between 19 way I think about what causes my feelings“ (reappraisal), „I couldn’t stop
and 65 years old (M = 39.69, SD = 11.64) and reported a range of 0 to thinking about my feelings“ (rumination), „I have talked about my
46 years of working experience (M = 17.22, SD = 12.69). The Austrian feelings with others“ (social sharing), „I have avoided expressing my
sample included 1415 participating officers from four different regions emotions“ (expressive suppression), and „I have engaged in activities to
(Vienna, Graz, Tirol and Carinthia). The German sample comprised of distract myself from my feelings“ (distraction). Each item was rated on a
two LEAs (Police Berlin; Police Baden Wurttemberg, Mannheim) with seven-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very). Following the
711 participating officers. In Switzerland (n = 325), one police depart­ results of Brans et al. (2013), two subscales of adaptive emotion regu­
ment (Stadtpolizei Zurich) participated. In the Netherlands (n = 76) and lation and maladaptive regulation were calculated by averaging the
in Spain (n = 40), the National Police and the Policía Autonómica of respective items: Adaptive emotion regulation comprised reflection,

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M.O. Frenkel et al. Journal of Criminal Justice 72 (2021) 101756

Table 2
Sample description.
Austria (n = 1415) Germany (n = 711) Switzerland (n = 325) Netherlands (n = 76) Spain (n = 40) Total (n = 2567)

Age 38.05 (11.79) 42.20 (11.81) 39.80 (9.95) 44.13 (9.86) 44.38 (8.17) 39.69 (11.64)
Sex (m) 78% 72% 80% 74% 88% 77%
Working experience (in years) 15.34 (12.88) 21.63 (12.76) 14.63 (9.61) 20.40 (10.31) 18.44 (9.08) 17.22 (12.69)
Job Position
Field Service 70% 37% 69% 46% 68% 60%
Patrolling Service 66% 34% 68% 65% 55%
Highway Patrol 1% 2% 2% 0% 1%
Border Control 3% 0% 0% 0% 2%
Police Cadet 1% 1% 0% 0% 1%
Office Service 22% 56% 26% 7% 4% 31%
Command Staff 15% 21% 11% 8% 15%
Criminal Investigator 5% 19% 3% 3% 8%
Case Processing 2% 15% 7% 3% 6%
Instructor 0% 2% 1% 3% 1%

Note. Job position was assessed by a free response question. Answers were categorized in the main categories Field Service and Office Service with respective
categories.

reappraisal, distraction and social sharing as they were related to increases entered. For each Level 1 and Level 2 predictor, the interaction with the
in positive affect, while maladaptive emotion regulation consisted of time predictor was checked and only remained in the model if signifi­
rumination and expressive suppression related to increases in negative cant. Prior to analyses, stressor appraisal and emotion regulation were
affect (Brans et al., 2013). centered around the within-person mean, thereby yielding within-
Preparedness through police training was measured using the single subject predictors that vary within, but not between individuals
item „How well did your police training prepare you for the current (Curran & Bauer, 2011). Preparedness was centered around the within-
work demands during the COVID-19 crisis?” rated from 1 (not at all) to 7 country mean. Working experience was grand-mean centered. Models
(very). were estimated with Restricted Maximum Likelihood (REML). To
compare model fit between nested models, we used Likelihood Ratio
1.2.2. Qualitative measures tests after refitting the respective models with Maximum Likelihood
The purpose of the open, free response questions was to explore of­ (ML). For unnested models, the Deviance (− 2LL) statistic, Akaike in­
ficers’ lived experiences and practices at various stages during the formation criterion (AIC), and Bayesian information criterion (BIC) were
COVID-19 pandemic. In light of the main tasks during the pandemic, the used to evaluate improvements in fit with each addition of variables to
survey sought to identify private and work-related stressors, effective the model; decreasing values indicate improvements in fit. The signifi­
measures taken before and during the pandemic, and availability of cance level was set at α = .05. Pseudo-R2 at Level 1 was determined
support. An overview of all open questions can be found in Supplement using the following equation: Pseudo-R2 =
σ2 reference model − σ2 final model
, where the
σ2 reference model
Table S1.
reference model is the unconditional means model (Raudenbush & Bryk,
2002).
1.3. Statistical analysis The open-ended questions were analyzed and coded based on the
deductive category assignment in the qualitative content analysis ac­
To verify a summary index of strain, a principal component analysis cording to Mayring (2014). For analyses, data units were derived from
(PCA) was conducted on eight items of stress, fatigue, and the Multidi­ the answers of the respondents to the open-ended questions. Each data
mensional Mood Questionnaire. The aim was to obtain a parsimonious unit consists of an independently interpretable and meaningful unit. In
solution by explaining the variation in the original data set using only some cases, the answer represented one data unit, whereas in other
one underlying component. Reliability tests of Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin cases, the answers were split into multiple data units. This was done
(KMO) measure of sampling adequacy and communality values justified when an answer contained more than one meaningful unit and
the use of PCA. addressed more than one issue. As an example, when a respondent listed
A multilevel growth curve approach was applied to analyze changes three work demands, this answer was split into three data units, each
in strain over time during the pandemic. Multilevel modeling analyses listing one work demand. The open, inductive coding was done with
were performed in R (R Core Team, 2020) using the lme4 package about 50% of the dataset, and with this selection of the data, no new
(Bates, Mächler, Bolker, & Walker, 2015) and lmerTest package (Kuz­ codes came up. The developed coding structure was then deductively
netsova, Brockhoff, & Christensen, 2017). A multilevel model assuming applied to the remainder of the data.
three levels was applied with strain (Level 1) nested within individuals All data units were assigned to main categories, and most data units
(Level 2) nested within countries (Level 3). Random intercept models were assigned to subcategories within the main categories. If an answer
with fixed effects of Level 1 and Level 2 predictors on strain were could not be clearly assigned to any of the defined subcategories, it was
specified. In Step 1, an unconditional means model with no predictor sorted into a main category. An overview of all main categories and
variables was built to understand the amount of variance in strain par­ subcategories can be found in Supplement Table S1. Frequency of cita­
titioned into within-person, between-person and between-countries tions for each main category are reported for each measurement point
variance. In Step 2, an unconditional growth model with time as a and each country.
predictor variable was used to understand the extent to which within-
person variation was a function of the passing of weeks since the lock­ 2. Results
down (growth). Weeks since lockdown was a decimal number, which
was calculated by dividing days since lockdown by 7. A quadratic trend 2.1. Principal component analysis/summary index
was checked for by entering (weeks since lockdown)2. In Step 3, fixed
Level 1 effects of stressor appraisal, emotion regulation and prepared­ A PCA was conducted on eight items (stress, fatigue, mood) without
ness (time-variant predictors) were added. In Step 4, the fixed Level 2 rotation. The KMO measure verified the sampling adequacy for the
effects of work experience and sex (time-invariant predictors) were

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M.O. Frenkel et al. Journal of Criminal Justice 72 (2021) 101756

analysis, KMO = 0.92 (“marvellous” according to Kaiser & Rice, 1974), Table 3
and all KMO values for individual items were greater than 0.90, which is Results of the hierarchical linear model predicting strain using restricted
well above the acceptable limit of 0.50 (Kaiser & Rice, 1974). A one- maximum likelihood.
factor solution with an eigenvalue above Kaiser’s criterion of 1 (eigen­ Unconditional Unconditional Level 1 Level 2
value = 5.41) emerged and explained 68% of the variance. The items means model growth model predictors predictors
tired–awake (E+), agitated–calm (C+) and, unwell–well (V+) nega­ Fixed Effects – Estimates
tively loaded on strain (< 0.80). Factor loadings for stress, fatigue, Intercept 3.51 (0.18)*** 3.73 (0.17)*** 3.63 3.56
content–discontent (V–), full of energy–without energy (E–), and (0.17)*** (0.16)***
Weeks Since − 0.04 − 0.02 − 0.02
relaxed–tense (C–) were above 0.78. Varimax rotation did not change
Lockdown (0.01)*** (0.01)** (0.01)**
the results. Stressor 0.45 0.46
The PCA verifies the use of a single summary index representing Appraisal (0.06)*** (0.06)***
stress, fatigue and mood. Strain was calculated as the average score of all Emotion − 0.07 − 0.09
eight items, after items with negative loadings were reverse coded. In Regulation (0.04) (0.04)*
adaptive
the subsequent analyses, strain was entered as the outcome variable in Emotion 0.15 0.16
the multilevel growth curve models. Regulation (0.03)*** (0.03)***
maladaptive
Preparedness − 0.10 − 0.10
2.2. Multilevel growth curve models (0.01)*** (0.01)***
Sex (female) 0.22
In total, there were 3455 completed questionnaires. Participants (0.06)***
Working 0.01
completed an average of 1.35 (SD = 0.65) questionnaires. While 248
Experience (0.00)**
participants completed questionnaires at all three measurement waves, Random Effects
392 participants filled out two and 1927 filled out one questionnaire. Variance 0.57 0.56 0.51 0.50
Descriptive statistics of strain and all predictor variables are presented in Residual
Variance 1.18 1.19 1.19 1.18
Supplement Table S2.
Individual
Table 3 summarizes the multilevel modeling results for strain. As (Intercept)
evidenced by the decrease in Deviance, AIC, and BIC, each model Variance 0.15 0.12 0.13 0.11
improved in fit with each subsequent step. In the Unconditional Means Country
Model, we partitioned the between-country, between- and within- (Intercept)
ICC, Level 3 0.08 0.06 0.07 0.06
person variation in strain (see Table 3). The intraclass correlation was
ICC, Level 2 0.62 0.64 0.65 0.66
0.70 – in other words, 30% of the variation in strain occurred within ICC, Level 2 0.70 0.69 0.72 0.72
each individual, 62% between individuals and 8% between countries. nested within
Model comparison showed that the three-level-model had a better fit Level 3
Fit Statistics
than the two-level-model (X2(1) = 110.96, p < .001), indicating that
Number of 3455 3455 3421 3077
levels of strain do vary between countries. Observations
We examined the growth of strain as a linear and quadratic function Number of 2567 2567 2542 2261
of weeks since lockdown. Results indicated that across all participants, Individuals
weeks since lockdown significantly predicted strain (see Table 3). A Number of 5 5 5 5
Countries
quadratic term of time did not significantly predict strain (Estimate =
Deviance 11,184.4 11,157.3 10,899.5 9730.2
− 0.001, SE = 0.002, p = .63) and did not improve the model fit, X2(1) = AIC 11,192.4 11,167.3 10,917.5 9752.2
0.23, p = .64. Thus, there was a slight, but significant linear decrease of BIC 11,216.9 11,198.1 10,972.7 9818.5
strain over time. -2LL − 5592.2 − 5578.7 − 5449.7 − 4865.1
Next, we tested whether stressor appraisal, adaptive and maladap­ Pseudo R2 0.02 0.11 0.12

tive emotion regulation and preparedness predicted strain in police of­ Note. ICC = Intraclass Correlation. Standard errors in parentheses. For all vari­
ficers. Stressor appraisal and maladaptive emotion regulation were ables, higher values imply a higher level of the respective construct (a positive
positively associated with strain, whereas preparedness negatively pre­ association implies an increase in strain with increasing parameters). Stressor
dicted strain (see Table 3). Adaptive emotion regulation did not signif­ appraisal and emotion regulation were person-mean centered, preparedness was
icantly predict strain. As indicated by the decrease in Deviance, AIC, and group-mean centered within the respective country, and working experience
was grand-mean centered.
BIC, the model improved in fit compared to the Unconditional Growth ***
p < .001.
Model. **
p < .01.
In the final model, we added the Level 2 predictors sex and work *
p < .05.
experience. Sex was significantly associated with strain, with women
being more strained (see Table 3). Work experience was negatively
2.3.1. Private stressors
associated with strain (see Table 3). As indicated by the decrease in
Most of the officers (roughly 80%) did not report any private
Deviance, AIC, and BIC, the entering of the Level 2 predictors further
stressors, indicating that they either did not face any private stressors or
improved the fit of the model.
that they did not want to report them in a survey conducted in an
occupational setting. Among those that have reported private stressors,
2.3. Qualitative results the two main themes of “worries about relatives” and “caregiving
duties” emerged and were mentioned throughout the complete survey
Frequency of citations for each main category are reported for each period (see Table 4).
measurement point in Table 4 and for each country in the Supplement Related to worries about relatives, officers mostly mentioned rela­
Table S3. For each question, we will discuss two to three main themes tives’ or friends’ diseases or medical histories that might constitute them
that stood out from the data by high frequencies, changes, or differences as risk patients. Some officers reported to have been faced with the death
between countries. In the following sections, these themes and their of a relative or friend.
content are illustrated with citations from the present survey. Supple­ Caregiving duties mainly consisted of childcare including home
mentary quotations can be found in the Supplement Table S4. schooling. Some officers also mentioned this as a work stressor

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M.O. Frenkel et al. Journal of Criminal Justice 72 (2021) 101756

Table 4 Regular police tasks are considered as “normal everyday business”

Frequencies of perceived private stressors, main tasks, work stressors, effective (male German officer, 53 years, t3) including corona-unrelated patrols,
crisis measures, effective crisis prevention and wishes for support during the vehicle controls, property protection and call for services in cases such
pandemic (in % of all coded answers). as theft, domestic violence, disturbances or physical assault. Occasion­
t1 t2 t3 t4 ally, officers observed an increase in cases of domestic violence.
Private Stressors Tasks of the corona patrol mainly aimed at being visible in the
Caregiving Duties 6.1 4.5 5.3 0.0 community, such as monitoring compliance with social distancing reg­
Economic and Domestic Obligations 2.4 3.0 1.6 0.0 ulations, and patrolling critical infrastructure. Only a few targeted
Health Concerns 3.6 3.1 3.4 5.7 COVID-19 interventions such as vehicle controls or dissolving “COVID
Romantic Relationships 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Social Distancing 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
parties” were mentioned. In Austria and Spain, police officers were also
Worries about Relatives 6.6 7.4 6.6 8.6 responsible for the delivery of notifications about home quarantine and
Empty/ No Answer 81.3 82 83.1 85.7 controlling the compliance. In this context, officers reported an
Main Tasks increasing demand to care for the “unsettled civil population” (male
Border Control 2.0 1.5 1.6 0.0
Austrian officer, 59 years, t1) by informing and educating about the
Corona Patrol 42.8 39.1 30.3 20.5
Criminal Investigation 6.3 5.2 7.7 0.6 current governmental measures and recommendations, either via phone
Emergency Call Taking and Dispatching 0.3 0.7 0.7 0.6 in the office service or in conversations during patrols:
Management Tasks 15.5 14.7 17.7 13.5
Off Duty 0.4 0.7 0.8 0.6 Police Department received/receives continuous and all-day phone calls
Office Service Tasks 8.4 8.2 8.5 10.8 asking questions about the current crisis. To be honest I/we felt like em­
Usual Patrolling Service 21.6 27.1 29.5 50.6 ployees of a customer support hotline.
Empty/ No Answer 2.7 2.8 3.2 2.8
Work Stressors (male Austrian officer, 25 years, t1)
Leadership Communication 13.7 10.1 8.2 1.8
None 22.9 26.0 31.3 35.4 At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, police officers’ main
Operational Tasks 2.1 6.2 4.9 12.4 tasks focused on corona patrol. Regular police tasks seemed to be
Risk of Infection 23.2 15.9 12.1 13.3
Sense of Purpose 1.6 1.2 1.8 1.8
dispelled by these tasks initially, but then steadily gained in importance
Uncertainty about Future 2.0 1.6 1.1 0.9 replacing the corona patrol (see Table 4). This apparent interference of
Uncertainty in Action 5.8 6.7 5.3 8.8 the corona patrol with the regular police work was explicitly expressed
Working Circumstances 9.2 11.7 13.7 9.7 by the officers, either through complaints about the extra workload or
Working Hours and Annual Leave 9.1 10.0 7.9 3.5
through the demand to neglect their regular tasks:
Empty/ No Answer 10.4 10.6 13.7 12.4
Effective Crisis Measures
Mainly the monitoring of the social distancing rules. Most of the important
Additional Authority for Action 2.0 2.1 1.7 2.4
Hygiene Measures 8.8 8.8 10.1 13.8 police activities that were considered indispensable in the past are sud­
Information Supply 3.1 3.7 3.6 10.6 denly no longer relevant.
Measures of Restricted Civil Contact 21.7 16.9 16.3 13.0
None 29.5 32.6 34.1 18.7 (male German officer, 44 years, t1)
Others 0.2 1.8 2.5 4.9
Personnel Measures 16.7 18.1 12.9 17.9 Given that the sample consists of ca. 15% command staff, their focus
Social Support 0.8 0.3 0.1 0.0 of police work during the COVID-19 pandemic was on management
Structural Adjustments 2.8 2.4 1.8 0.0 tasks including human resources planning, administration, and infor­
Unsatisfactory 0.8 1.4 1.6 4.1
mation supply. The command officers recognized the need for strong
Empty/ No Answer 13.6 11.9 15.3 14.6
Effective Crisis Prevention leadership by stating “much leadership required” (male German officer,
None 47.9 46.9 45.4 31.3 59 years, t1).
Off Duty Training 2.3 1.4 1.3 0.0
Organizational Resources 11.6 12.5 12 13.1 Trying to cope with the flood of e-mails as well as innovations, in­
Police Training 11.1 10.9 12.1 16.1 structions, service regulations, recommendations; trying to keep an
Psychology 3.4 4.3 3.3 10.1 overview; informing employees about current processes and legal
Work Experience 4.2 4.8 4.5 2.1
situations.
Empty/No Answer 19.5 19.2 21.4 27.3
Wishes for Support
(male German officer, 44 years, t1)
Compatibility of Work and Family 1.2 1.4 1.6 0.0
Corona Protection 30.9 18.1 15.1 19.5
Governmental Measures 5.4 7.3 6.1 5.3
Information Provision 18.1 19.0 19.5 15.9
2.3.3. Work stressors
Leadership Support 4.8 7.5 8.6 14.2 While some officer reported severe signs of strain (“I feel burned out”;
Personnel Adjustments 11.6 15.1 11 3.5 male German officer, 53 years, t1), roughly a quarter of the officers
None 9.9 12.5 13.7 15.9 stated to experience no work stressors with increasing numbers at each
Empty/ No Answer 18.1 19.1 24.4 25.7
measurement point (see Table 4). At the beginning of the pandemic (t1),
Note. Numbers in bold represent the three most frequently mentioned stressors. the risk of infection and deficient leadership and communication
emerged as the main stressors with decreasing numbers at each mea­
indicating that caregiving duties interfered with their working hours. It surement point (see Table 4). Instead, working circumstances as stressor
is striking that this stressor is mostly apparent in the German and Aus­ gained importance in the middle of the survey period.
trian sample and less so in the other countries (see Supplement The risk of infection included two facets: the risk of getting infected
Table S3). Therefore, the decrease of caregiving duties should not be and being a risk for others, especially for family members. Two main
interpreted as a time effect, but rather reflects differences among reasons for the risk of infection as a stressor can be identified in the
countries. officers’ reports: civilians’ unwillingness to comply with the social
distancing rules and the lack of PPE. At the beginning of the pandemic,
2.3.2. Main tasks many officers had no protection equipment at all, and supply of PPE was
Officers’ tasks during the COVID-19 pandemic mainly included perceived as slow or inadequate (had to be bought by themselves or at
regular police tasks and the so-called “corona patrol”. team level).

6
M.O. Frenkel et al. Journal of Criminal Justice 72 (2021) 101756

Absolutely unsatisfactory protective equipment / the feeling that “the cutting the regular criminal investigation. Other officers wondered
service and functioning of the police force prevails over police officer’s about the righteousness of the governmental measures in the face of
health“. liberal, democratic principles. In this sense, some officers felt stressed by
their accountability towards the civil population to only enforce legiti­
(male German officer, 55 years, t2) mized, righteous regulations.

Uncertainty about whether you yourself have been infected or whether a To curtail citizens in their fundamental rights is an unpleasant task.
colleague has been infected is psychologically very stressful, as there is a
(male Austrian officer, 42 years, t3)
high probability that you will infect your own family.

(male Austrian officer, 25 years, t2) Due to an unclear legal situation and mediation by the government that
certain activities are forbidden, although they are only recommendations
In the context of civilians’ unwillingness to comply with social
without punishment, an expectation by the public arises, which I, due to
distancing rules, officers occasionally reported observations of increased
the lack of a legal situation, cannot fulfil.
potential of aggression against police authority:
(male Austrian officer, 57 years, t1)
The atmosphere outside is grimmer, […] there is more resistance and
rebellion towards cops. For working circumstances in the middle of the observation phase,
two main themes emerged. First, officers were bothered by the need to
(male Dutch officer, 24 years, t2) comply to all hygiene measures, especially wearing the oronasal masks
in the patrol cars. Second, officers reported to be stressed by the need to
Mentally unstable persons are overwhelmed by the crisis, which is why socially distance themselves from their colleagues and by deteriorated
there is an increased number of police interventions, failure to keep a safe team climate due to an overall intense situation.
distance, persons who are overwhelmed with their feelings/fear and ex­
press this in aggression, unwilling to accept the danger of the virus or do 2.3.4. Effective crisis measures
not want to admit it. Roughly a third of the officers reported no effective crisis measures
have been taken (see Table 4). Different reasons for this answer can be
(male Austrian officer, 43 years, t2)
derived from their reports: a) no measures have been taken because no
measures were necessary, b) measures should have been taken, but they
People are becoming more detached, more aggressive. That’s what they
were not, c) measures have been taken but were not sufficient or
vent on us police officers.
effective, and d) measures that have been taken aggravated the work.
(female German officer, 49 years, t3)
There are no crises, these are home made!!
The perceived deficient leadership and communication at the
(male Austrian officer, 57 years, t2)
beginning of the pandemic is mainly attributed to an information
overload with daily changing laws, regulations, and orders that do not
contain clear instructions for action. Some of these ambiguities seemed None, since everything seems rather aimless and senseless.
to appear on a governmental level due to legal vagueness (“Legal im­ (male German officer, 35 years, t2)
broglio”; male Austrian officer, 24 years, t2) and rapid change of regu­
lations. On the organizational level, the interpretation of the regulation
None, there are too many and confusing. A clear, generally valid in­
and implementation of the measures had to be conducted at short notice.
struction for action and not constant changes would be necessary.
Some officers perceived this as a “constantly changing actionism of the
entire leadership” (male German officer, 29 years, t1). Additionally, some (male German officer, 35 years, t1)
officers observed that responsibilities were not clearly assigned, leading
to the “occasional practice: many cooks spoil the broth.” (male German Measures taken are necessary but make everyday business more difficult.
officer, 60 years, t1) and inconsistency in orders. In turn, the executive
officers felt burdened by unfiltered, constantly changing information (male German officer, 32 years, t1)
and unclear, inconsistent instructions both on the governmental and The remaining officers mainly perceived three measures as effective:
organizational level. This ambiguity in information resulted in an un­ measures to restrict civil contact, personnel measures and the provision
certainty of action, which did not allow “a self-confident and correct of PPE as a hygiene measure (see Table 4). It appears that the perceived
intervention” (Austrian officer, 28 years, t1). effectiveness of these measures varies across the countries: In Austria,
Changes and adaptations of the service to new needs. Interpretation of the measures to restrict civil contact are mostly mentioned, whereas
rules. Implementation of the measures. Managing uncertainty. German and Dutch officers mentioned personnel measures more often.
In Spain, hygiene measures seemed to be most important for the officers
(male Spanish officer, 57 years, t3) (see Supplement Table S3).
The measures to restrict civil contact can be differentiated into
The rapid changes. What was valid yesterday is no longer valid tomorrow. governmental and organizational measures. Both aim at reducing the
number of contacts and therefore, the risk of infection. Governmental
(male German officer, 50 years, t1) measures include the social distancing regulations, prohibition of access
or residence in public spaces, event cancellations, and closure of res­
“What I need I won’t get, what I get I don’t need.” taurants, bars and night clubs. Police officers reported that those mea­
sures reduced passenger and car traffic resulting in smaller numbers of
(male Austrian officer, 54 years, t2)
criminal offences. In this context, some officers explicitly commended
In the context of the vague legal situation, for some officers, the the communication of the governmental measures as this has raised
enforcement of the governmental measures triggered dissonance be­ awareness in the civil population helping to justify police interventions.
tween their actions and beliefs. Some officers did not perceive the
corona patrols to be effective, especially because they came at the cost of

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M.O. Frenkel et al. Journal of Criminal Justice 72 (2021) 101756

No party scene, no alcohol, no prostitution, practically no bodily harm We have switched to A and B groups that do not meet.
and assault during the night hours, our normal street life (party scene) has
totally stopped. Only monitoring of the Covid19 measures. (male German officer, 43 years, t1)

(male Swiss officer, 61 years, t2) The possibility of temporal and spatial separation through generous
release from service regulations to maintain the functioning of my
Raising public awareness through the political structures. department.

(male Swiss officer, 24 years, t2) (male German officer, 59 years, t1)

Media communication of the measures as a basis for argumentation when The possibilities of release from service give possibilities to “switch off”
intervening. and “come down” at home.

(male Austrian officer, 25 years, t3) (female German officer, 26 years, t1)

Most of the organizational measures aimed at reducing public access For hygiene measures, officers most frequently mentioned the supply
and traffic within the police stations. Police officers mentioned mea­ with PPE . Additionally, they listed spitting protection in interviewing
sures, such as promoting online police services, changing the processes rooms, enforcing safety distance in the office or switching to telephone/
for police reports and limiting the conduction of police interviews to online conferences.
serious offences only. Clearly, those measures only targeted the officers
in the office service, whereas officers in the field service seemed to 2.3.5. Effective crisis prevention
benefit from the governmental measures. One officer explicitly stated Nearly half of the officers reported that no measures in preparation
that “compliance with the COVID-19 measures led to a reduction in work for crises were taken (see Table 4). Analogous to the acute crisis mea­
only for the office service but this was far overtaken by the monitoring of sures, different reasons for this answer can be derived from the officers’
measures” (male Austrian officer, 50 years, t3). reports: a) preventive measures should have been taken, but they were
Regarding personnel measures, LEAs aimed at increasing the avail­ not, b) no crisis prevention was possible because the situation was un­
ability of personnel, while at the same time they implemented measures expected and dynamic and, c) the measures taken were not sufficient
to limit the interaction between officers. The increased number of enough. Irrespective of the judgment how prepared they felt, some of­
available officers was mainly achieved by the suspension of annual leave ficers pointed out that there was no specific crisis management or
and in Austria by calling in police cadets. Both commanders and officers pandemic-specific training. Additionally, some officers perceived no
approved the suspension of leave. Commanders reported that the crisis prevention measures on an organizational level, but emphasized
increased availability of personnel facilitated duty rostering, while ex­ the use of individual strategies.
ecutive officers noted the burden sharing between all officers resulting
None. The police are as overwhelmed as the citizens themselves.
in reduced overtime hours and better planning reliability for leisure
activities. (female German officer, 38 years, t1)
Noticeable caring measures by the employer (change in the shift roster/
regulations). There can be no advance provision for a crisis of this magnitude and
nature, as there has been no such situation since the last world war.
(male Austrian officer, 34 years, t2) Measures in the preparation for a crisis could also not be anticipated by
the employer.
Suspension of leave, as all available officials are on duty and the burden is
therefore shared. (male Austrian officer, 58 years, t2)

(male Austrian officer, 28 years, t3) In general, the training is helpful; however, I believe that in the current
situation, the character and nature of each individual influences the
However, having too much personnel on duty was also perceived as a
coping with COVID-19.
risk of infection waves, especially when not limiting the interaction
between officers. Consequently, LEAs were forced to implement mea­ (male Austrian officer, 47 years, t1)
sures preventing superspreading of the SARS-CoV-2 across the police
force. Therefore, some officers were allowed to work from home if The remaining officers perceived mainly three factors as effective in
possible. However, some answers indicated that the unequal availability the crisis prevention: police training, general work experience, and
of home office possibilities might also cause conflicts within the police: organizational resources (see Table 4).
For police training, the officers mostly mentioned the transfer of
[…] I expected more active support from the homeworkers! Not once did skills acquired in scenario-based situational response training. The of­
they come forward to assist. There are only a few colleagues of whom I ficers reported that the situational response trainings generally prepared
know they were actually working. them for “unusual and chaotic situations” (male German officer, 38 years,
t1). Foremost, they described self-protection as the key principle in
(female Dutch officer, 51 years, t2)
training that has conditioned them to keep a safety distance to the police
Officers on duty in the departments perceived adjustments to the vis-à-vis. Additional skills acquired in the situational response training
shift roster as effective, with different types of shift rosters being were target-oriented communication and stress regulation. Besides
mentioned (e.g., rotating shifts, group service, 12- or 24-h duties). situational response training, officers also reported hygienic training
Additionally, some officers also mentioned fixed patrol dyads and the and the understanding for legal regulations as effective crisis prevention
stop of replacements in other police stations. At the beginning of the measures in police training.
pandemic, police officers reported that their departments operated at
Self-safety is very important during the training. This idea is firmly
minimum number of staff which allowed them releases from service.
anchored.
The additional leisure time through releases from service was perceived
as an opportunity for recreation and relaxation: (female German officer, 29 years, t2)

8
M.O. Frenkel et al. Journal of Criminal Justice 72 (2021) 101756

Distance and hygiene always play a major role in daily service/handling suggested widely applied testing or medical checks for police officers to
of people. No change, because you are “conditioned” for it. minimize the risk of infections within the police force and in order to
protect officers’ families. Acknowledging the dilemma of more officers
(female German officer, 45 years, t2) on duty (due to the suspension of annual leave) and the need to limit
Besides training experience, some officers reported work or life interaction, officers requested stricter policies for physical segregation
experience as an effective resource during the pandemic. They did not of colleagues in departments and asked for hygiene information.
describe specific skills acquired through work experience, but rather
More protective equipment – It is widely reported in the media that police
summarized this as “common sense”. Occasionally, officers reported
officers must now wear masks, but these are not available in sufficient
that experiences and lessons learnt with other viruses (e.g., avian
numbers.
influenza) or crises (e.g., wave of refugees 2015/16) prepared them for
the COVID-19 pandemic. (male Austrian officer, 26 years, t1)

Experience, common sense, crisis management training in other contexts. For personnel adjustments, there are inconsistent reports whether
personnel strength should be increased or minimum number of staff in
(male Spanish officer, 57 years, t4) the department should be decreased to limit interactions between offi­
cers. Therefore, some officers demanded building personnel reserves in
Due to my decades of field service experience, the so-called crisis pre­ order to maintain functioning in case of infections, including the
vention is based on routine, common sense and simply listening to people. approval of the suspension of annual leave for this purpose. Other re­
quests targeted the organization of the working time: Some officers
(male Austrian officer, 53 years, t3)
asked for more home office possibilities, while they also noted that
Organizational resources describe the self-concept as police and refer adequate technical equipment needs to be provided in this case. Other
to competencies that are attributed to the organization and all its officers claimed flexible working hours and an increase in resting pe­
members. These competencies included hierarchy, flexibility of action, riods (in some cases this meant stopping the suspension of annual leave).
and competence of decision making. However, officers mostly
mentioned internal channels of information, including emails, intranet, As is the case in many departments, our department currently shows that
or support by COVID-19 task forces. too much personnel has been cut in recent years. Retired / transferred
colleagues are only replaced after months / years or not at all.
It’s up to police officer to respond adequately to special situations. To be
practical and solution-oriented. By definition, we are good at that. (male Austrian officer, 34 years, t1)

(male Dutch officer, 51 years, t2) As there are currently a lot of colleagues on duty at the police departments
due to a ban on leave, cancellation of training etc., it would be urgently
The ability of the police to be resilient and to cope with adversity. necessary to keep a part of the staff in reserve. The distance regulations
cannot be observed at my and many other police inspections, as far too
(male Spanish officer, 57 years, t3)
many people are on duty. If someone should ever test positive, the whole
service will be out of action for a long time. However, with a reserve of
The fact that every day in the police service can bring the unexpected and staff the service could be maintained.
requires mental and physical flexibility clearly helped to deal with the
COVID19 crisis, in which new instructions and guidelines for action were (male Austrian officer, 56 years, t2)
communicated daily.
Officers’ suggestions for information provision mainly targeted the
(female Swiss officer, 28 years, t2) style of communication. Information should be clearly structured and
transparent. Various sources of information should be pooled into a
single source to facilitate access to all relevant, up-to-date information
2.3.6. Wishes for further support (e.g., FAQ, newsletters once a day). Additionally, some officers asked for
training including hygienic training as well as a general preparation for
[…] We do not need blah-blah, but recognition without empty words […] exceptional situations.
Security that we will not end up spooning the soup, physically, financially
and emotionally. Superior departments and various task forces should pre-filter and
compress information in order to contain the flooding of the first re­
(female German officer, 40 years, t2) sponders with new guidelines and information. Before new instructions
and information are forwarded, the essential contents should be worked
In the officers’ wishes for further support, three areas for action can
out.
be identified (see Table 4). First, further protection measures against
SARS-CoV2 were requested, especially at the beginning of the pandemic (male Austrian officer, 33 years, t1)
and in Spain (see Supplement Table S3). This progression corresponds
well with the findings on risk of infection as the main stressor at the Hygiene training would perhaps be something, behaviour in exceptional
beginning of the pandemic and that Spanish officers perceived the PPE situations and by this I mean other scenarios that could occur. A good
as the most effective crisis measure. In the first half of the survey period, preparation would certainly be helpful.
officers also suggested personnel adjustments (see Table 4), especially in
Austria, Germany and Netherlands (see Supplement Table S3). (female Swiss officer, 34 years, t2)
Throughout the entire survey period, officers required improved forms
Roughly 10% of the officers reported no further wishes for support
of information provision (see Table 4).
during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially at the end of the survey
Requests for further protection measures mainly comprised of the
period. There are slight differences between countries: While all Spanish
need for more and better PPE. Some officers even reported that they did
officers asked for further support, a third of the Dutch officers mentioned
not have any PPE at the beginning of the pandemic. Others reported that
no wishes (see Suppplement Table S3). It is striking that most of these
they needed to share too little resources among too many officers within
reports comprised statements about general satisfaction with the mea­
their department and used privately acquired PPE. A few officers
sures. However, some limited this satisfaction to the current time point

9
M.O. Frenkel et al. Journal of Criminal Justice 72 (2021) 101756

indicating that they were not satisfied at the beginning of the pandemic considered chronically stressed in the literature (Allison et al., 2019;
or that the support might not be sufficient in the future (e.g., when the Giessing et al., 2020; Planche et al., 2019; Violanti et al., 2016), it seems
pandemic worsens). Interestingly, in the officers’ compliments, they plausible to assume that the “average” officer was only mildly affected
addressed coping at the individual, organizational, and governmental by the pandemic.
level: Confirming hypothesis 2, there was substantive variance between
countries, with German officers being most strained followed by Span­
Basically, everyone tries very hard to the best of their possibilities.
ish, Austrian, Dutch, and Swiss officers. The severity of the COVID-19
(male Austrian officer, 39 years, t1) pandemic, its impact on the national health system, and the effective­
ness of the governmental measures in each country as well as differences
The superiors and the command do what they can, currently no sugges­ among the LEAs (i.e., federal vs. national police, different regions within
tions for improvement. one country) might account for these differences. Additionally, variance
among the countries might be (partially) attributed to systematic dif­
(male Austrian officer, 36 years, t1) ferences in officers’ demographic characteristics (i.e., sex and work
experience; see Table 2), as indicated by reduced Level 3 variance when
In principle, I am satisfied with the measures taken by the Federal entering these variables in the final model (see Table 3). Despite the
Government. substantive variance between countries, most of the overall variance of
strain in the final model (66%; see Table 3) was at the individual level,
(male Austrian officer, 29 years, t2) suggesting that interindividual differences determined strain more than
differences between countries.
Confirming hypothesis 3, sex significantly predicted strain, with
3. Discussion
women being more strained than men (i.e., additional 0.21 on a scale
ranging from 1 to 7). This finding is in line with literature on gender
Police officers have faced a multitude of challenges during the
differences in police officers’ perceived stress in response to the 9/11
COVID-19 pandemic, and they need support through an effective crisis
terrorist attack (Bowler et al., 2010). Given that the pre-employment
management to successfully cope with the demands. LEAs must develop
screening and training are similar for police women and men, the
a realistic understanding of the officers’ stress experiences as well as the
findings of elevated strain in women need to be further investigated to
different coping resources officers use to manage the distressing state.
better understand its cause and to identify and implement preventive
Such awareness is beneficial, not only to guarantee police functioning
measures. Post-hoc analyses of cross-level interactions yielded a signif­
during pandemics, but also to facilitate officers’ stress coping abilities
icant interaction of sex and preparedness indicating that men experi­
and well-being. In a longitudinal design, the present study examined
enced less strain than women when feeling averagely prepared.
experiences reported by officers from five European countries from a
In addition, hypothesis 4 predicted that work experience would
stress and coping perspective. On average, officers seemed to tolerate
decrease work stress (Katana et al., 2019; Landman, Nieuwenhuys, &
the stress experiences during the pandemic with slight decreases of
Oudejans, 2016). Indeed, work experience significantly reduced offi­
strain over three months after the lockdown. Although there is sub­
cers’ strain during the pandemic. Officers’ reports about work or life
stantive variance of strain among countries, large inter-individual dif­
experience as a relevant coping resource affirm the statistical findings.
ferences in strain were observed. Confirming our hypotheses, stressor
The effect of work experience might be attributed to the appraisal of a
appraisal, emotion regulation, preparedness, sex and working experi­
higher availability of coping resources. Since work experience and age
ence significantly predicted strain during the pandemic. Risk of infection
are correlated, it cannot be distinguished if specific police skills or
and deficient leadership and communication emerged consistently as
general life skills were responsible for this effect. In line with hypothesis
main stressors. In line with the large inter-individual variance in the
6, feeling prepared for the pandemic through training significantly
statistical analyses, officers’ perception of the effectiveness of various
reduced strain. This finding is underpinned by officers’ descriptions
coping resources on a governmental, organizational and individual level
about the specific police skills that helped them to cope with the
differed greatly.
pandemic. Specifically, they mentioned keeping safety distance,
communication skills and stress regulation which they have acquired in
3.1. Police officers’ strain appraisal processes, and coping resources situational response training. However, there are also reports in which
during the pandemic officers did not mention specific skills, but rather labelled it as “common
sense”. Following the line of general life skills, Katana et al. (2019)
Overall, officers seemed to tolerate the stress experiences by the suggested that individuals with advanced age have learned how to use
pandemic. At the day of the lockdown, an “average” officer (male, 17.22 more efficient emotion regulation strategies. Dependent on the strate­
years of work experience) had a medium strain level of 3.56 on a scale gies, emotion regulation can either decrease or increase (work) stress
ranging from 1 to 7. Hypothesis 1 predicted that strain would vary and related stress responses (Brans et al., 2013; Katana et al., 2019;
during the pandemic dependent on the severity of the pandemic and the Richardson, 2017). Confirming hypothesis 7, engaging in maladaptive
effectiveness of the crisis measures. Indeed, strain levels significantly emotion regulation, i.e., rumination and expressive suppression, was
decreased by 0.24 over three months after the lockdown (− 0.02 × 12 associated with higher strain. In contrast, the use of adaptive emotion
weeks = − 0.24). Therefore, it can be speculated that strain might have regulation, i.e., reflection, reappraisal, social sharing and distraction,
been slightly higher than usual at the beginning of the lockdown, reduced officers’ strain during the pandemic.
although our data allows no comparison to strain before or after the Besides the availability of coping resources, hypothesis 5 predicted
pandemic. Since neither stress appraisal nor emotion regulation and that strain would also be impacted by the stressor appraisal (Lazarus &
preparedness significantly interacted with time after the lockdown, it Folkman, 1984). Negative appraisals of the pandemic as stressful,
remains unclear if the pandemic as stressor or the effectiveness of the threatening, uncontrollable, and challenging significantly increased of­
coping resources caused the decrease in officers’ strain. Nevertheless, ficers’ strain during the pandemic. The use of the Transactional Stress
the additional strain at the beginning of the lockdown might be Theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) or alternatively the GST (Agnew,
explained through the reported extra work of corona patrols, which 1992) allows to explain police responses to stressful circumstances, such
interfered with regular police tasks. After three months, most of the as pandemics or in use of force incidents and in the long run, to predict
officers reported that they could return to regular police tasks, which behaviour and to intervene if necessary.
reduced their work load. Since changes are rather small and officers are In sum, while the “average” officer is rather moderately stressed by

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the pandemic, the quantitative and qualitative results demonstrate that effective by the officers were mainly aimed at reducing the risk of
there is a large individual variance and diversity in the stress responses. infection, which was identified as one of the main stressors. Above all,
Analyses showed that women, officers with less working experience or LEAs should prepare for pandemics by stockpiling PPE, including masks,
those not feeling prepared, appraising the pandemic as stressful and gloves, gowns, eyewear, and hand sanitizer, to ensure an immediate and
utilizing maladaptive emotion regulation are at risk to experience severe sufficient supply at all times (Brito et al., 2009; Jennings & Perez, 2020).
stress. Given the persistence of the pandemic, chronically elevated stress However, prolonged use of PPE and adherence to safety health policies
levels might jeopardize officers’ psychological and physical well-being might distract police officers from other obligations, causing additional
(McEwen & Stellar, 1993). Therefore, the identification of risk factors physical and mental fatigue (Chen et al., 2020; Stogner et al., 2020;
for less effective coping with COVID-19 related stress helps LEAs to Tsamakis et al., 2020). Therefore, LEAs should include the costs in their
direct their resources towards the officers in most need of mental health performance expectations and constantly re-evaluate the necessity of
services. those measures based on officers’ experiences. Secondly, LEAs reduced
the risk of infection by personnel adjustments. To minimize the contact
3.2. Implications for effective crisis management between officers, LEAs suspended roll-call and instituted 50/50 work
plans by dividing the department’s employees in half and keeping the
For effective crisis management in the pandemic, the perceived two groups completely separate (also see Jennings & Perez, 2020). At
stressors need to be addressed on a governmental, organizational and the beginning of the pandemic, they also reduced the staff on duty or
individual level. From the officers’ reports, two major stressors or areas present in the departments through releases and possibilities to work
of concerns consistently emerged: Risk of infection and information remotely. However, the officers’ reports showed that these measures
provisioning through leadership and internal communication to reduce require far-sighted planning (e.g., providing technical equipment for
uncertainty in action. Both the statistical and qualitative results of the remote work) and good internal communication, so that no conflicts or
present study allow to derive recommendations on how to successfully perceived inequity between colleagues may arise. Additionally, some
cope with these stressors. officers started to complain about too many officers present in the de­
partments during the pandemic due to the suspension of annual leave.
3.2.1. Governmental measures While command and executive officers appreciated the burden sharing
On the governmental level, the local lockdowns and social distancing between all officers, LEAs should keep the number of staff on duty at a
policies, whether compulsory or voluntarily, were reported as facili­ minimum and use the personnel reserves as back-up in case of high
tating the police work. This finding contradicts concerns in an American infection numbers (Brito et al., 2009). Thirdly, LEAs reduced the risk of
narrative that social distancing could increase the number of service infection by limiting the interaction with the public. In the officers’
calls due to violations of the policies (Jennings & Perez, 2020). Although reports in the present study, those measures including focussing on the
reports of certain offences including vandalism and domestic violence investigation of critical incidents or felonies only and expanding online
have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, overall, calls for ser­ reporting options or call centers mainly benefitted officers being on duty
vices have slightly decreased (Campedelli et al., 2003; Mohler et al., in departments. In the literature, there are also reports of measures that
2020). Nevertheless, monitoring the compliance with the governmental aim at protecting street patrol officers in the field, including suspending
measures on the corona patrol and educating civilians about the current protocols that put people in custody or handling non-violent and non-
regulations were officers’ main tasks at the beginning of the lockdown. emergency calls via telephone (Jennings & Perez, 2020). Additionally,
Therefore, the officers emphasized that clear, understandable laws are dispatchers can be instructed to divert calls for service to public health
important for legitimized and self-confident police interventions. While services if a police response is not necessary. In case a police response is
public health departments lead the actual response to the pandemic, necessary, dispatchers could screen for COVID-19 symptoms of the
LEAs are expected to be “the voice of authority, calm, and guidance” caller to prepare the dispatched officers (Jennings & Perez, 2020).
(Brito, Luna, & Sanberg, 2009, p. 1). Consequently, officers are tasked However, many of these measures come at the cost of regular crime
with communicating the voluntary and mandatory measures, the values investigation, which led to a loss of sense of purpose for some officers.
of compliance with these measures for the common good, reassuring Officers’ concerns about the fundamental responsibility of police work
frightened civilians, and the consequences for violations (Jennings & should be acknowledged by the superiors to ensure job satisfaction.
Perez, 2020). Governments have supported the officers in the enforce­ Addressing internal communication, officers reported effective
ment of these policies by effective media communication and public measures less frequently. Nonetheless, information provision emerged
safety initiatives. Nevertheless, we found reports of increased potential as a main theme requiring further coping resources. Officers reported to
for aggression against police officers at an early stage of the pandemic in be stressed by an overload of ambiguous, rapidly changing and some­
our data. Given the developments of violent riots during the pandemic times contradictory information, which led to uncertainty in action.
(Stogner et al., 2020), e.g., in Stuttgart, Germany or Belgrade, Serbia, Therefore, strong leadership is warranted that addresses this uncer­
officers seem to be a sensor for rising social discontent with the tainty. Milliard and Papazoglou (2020) recommend leaders to educate
governmental measures. Therefore, governments should take officers’ and regularly update their teams using valid knowledge from estab­
experiences of increasing resistance seriously, implement early-warning lished organizations. As indicated by the officers’ reports, LEAs should
systems to detect rising conflicts, and support the police in the preven­ make use of the hierarchy, which was named as one organizational
tion of social disorder by inclusive leadership and legitimacy of au­ resource, by pooling and filtering information from various sources in a
thority (Reicher & Stott, 2020). This is especially critical because public superordinate authority. Then, information containing relevant and
health policies during pandemics might also limit possibilities of posi­ clear instructions for action should be distributed to the different target
tive interactions of the police with the community in outreach initiatives groups within the authority. In their reports, officers mentioned FAQs,
or community activities (Jennings & Perez, 2020). daily newsletters or help telephones as best practices.
In organizational crisis prevention, police training plays a central
3.2.2. Organizational measures role as indicated by the negative association of feeling prepared through
Officers’ reports about the availability and effectiveness of organi­ training with strain and by the officers’ reports. Besides the request for
zational measures were inconsistent. While some officers perceived no training on health and safety precautions during a pandemic (Brito et al.,
measures at all or insufficient measures, other officers did list effective 2009; Jennings & Perez, 2020), our results revealed that skills acquired
measures. However, even among those, the assessments of the effec­ in the regular police training, especially self-protection, communication
tiveness differed, since benefits and costs of each measure were and stress regulation, can be transferred to the context of a pandemic.
considered and differently weighted. The measures perceived as Officers mostly rated situational response training as effective.

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M.O. Frenkel et al. Journal of Criminal Justice 72 (2021) 101756

Confirming the effectiveness of situational response training, some of­ accessible work force, resulting in limited control of the size, region and
ficers asked for more training for exceptional situations. This is in line demographic characteristics in each subsample. As a consequence,
with the general request for more frequent and realistic police training geographic distribution over the respective country, types of LEAs (e.g.,
(Di Nota & Huhta, 2019; Renden, Nieuwenhuys, Savelsbergh, & Oude­ federal vs. national police) and demographic characteristics of partici­
jans, 2015). To ensure that the majority of the officers benefits from pating officers differed among countries. Thus, caution must be taken in
training experiences, transferability into real-world contexts can be the interpretation of the results: Austria and Germany are over­
achieved by training under stress (Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2011) and represented in the data, the representativeness of the sample in each
following the recommendations of non-linear pedagogy (Körner & country might be limited and cross-country differences might be (partly)
Staller, 2018). attributable to demographic differences, as has been the case for sex and
work experience in the statistical analyses.
3.2.3. Individual measures The present study assessed officers’ stress experiences and coping on
As demonstrated by the large inter-individual variance in the sta­ duty and at the workplace. To reduce participants’ burden based on
tistical analyses, individual stressor appraisal and emotion regulation questioning them, we used questionnaires originally developed for
might outweigh governmental and organizational measures to cope with ecological momentary assessment. Therefore, findings might be limited
the pandemic. As officers are predicted to continue to deal with the by the use of single-item measures. To counteract the associated reli­
stress caused by the pandemic in the upcoming months, it is important ability concerns, we calculated summary indexes (i.e., strain, stressor
for departmental leadership to reduce stress as much as possible, and for appraisal, adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation) when possible.
officers to identify positive coping strategies (Stogner et al., 2020). Nevertheless, data might be biased by daily fluctuations since we did not
While individuals are certainly required to engage in active coping control for potential daily confounding factors (e.g., off- vs. on-duty,
themselves, LEAs can support their (vulnerable) members by educating type of the shift, timing in the shift, etc.). Finally, to receive authentic
on healthy coping strategies (Milliard & Papazoglou, 2020). For reports, officers provided their answers in their mother tongue. For
emotion-focused coping, reappraisal, reflection, distraction and social coding, data units were analyzed in the respective language, but cate­
sharing have been identified as adaptive. For problem-focused coping, gorized into an English coding system. This procedure required coding
LEAs can reduce uncertainty by providing information or giving advice by five different coders (four raters speak German and Dutch as their
on how to handle the uncertainty, building on existing knowledge and mother tongue, while one rater had advanced skills in Spanish), which
skills officers have acquired in police training. Although officers re­ might have resulted in biases in the categorization due to differences
ported to be more stressed by the uncertainty than the (long) working between the coders. Caution must be taken in the interpretation of the
hours, LEAs should give officers enough resting hours and opportunities frequencies for each main category. We used the frequencies of the
to engage in positive coping strategies (Milliard & Papazoglou, 2020). categories as a tool to identify the emerging main themes and patterns,
LEAs should provide professional psychological support and leaders but our main goal was to give voice to the officers and to get a full
should encourage officers’ seeking of such programs (Rooney & McNi­ picture of officers’ stress experiences during the pandemic.
cholas, 2020). However, these programs are often criticised as the Acknowledging the strengths and limitations, the results of the cur­
hyper-masculine culture of the police discourages officers to seek rent study point in direction for further research. First, despite the
external help. Therefore, programs that target positive coping skills longitudinal design, the study only captured a short period of the
through peer networks in partnership with clinicians (Papazoglou & pandemic and epidemiologists already discuss second waves and future
Tuttle, 2018; Stogner et al., 2020) or in the standard training curriculum outbreaks. Although the present results demonstrate a medium stress
(Papazoglou & Andersen, 2014) are often recommended. level on average, the long-term impact should be monitored, as chronic
In sum, the police carries great responsibility in the effort to control stress can have tremendous health consequences (Allison et al., 2019;
pandemics. Therefore, effective management is crucial to protect offi­ McEwen & Stellar, 1993). Second, the present study only assessed stress
cers’ functioning, well-being, and health. Reducing officers’ stress by experiences through self-report. Future studies could advance our
increasing public awareness for the necessity of measures, providing findings using physiological stress measurements, replicating studies
sufficient PPE, reducing uncertainty by unambiguous information, pre­ conducted before the pandemic’s outbreak for comparison (Stogner
paring officers for exceptional situations, and strengthening their indi­ et al., 2020). Finally, the effectiveness of the implications suggested by
vidual coping resources may be an effective approach to safely lead our results should be evaluated in experimental designs (e.g., the effects
them through the pandemic without compromising officers’ perfor­ of situational response training on stress regulation in various settings).
mance (Hope, 2016; Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2017; Stogner et al.,
2020) or well-being (McEwen & Stellar, 1993). 4. Conclusion

3.3. Strengths, limitations and further directions In the wake of the unprecedented situation, it was likely that the
LEAs and police officers were caught unprepared for the potential
Substantiating narratives about police stress, mental health, and mental stress that they would experience. However, overall, officers
resiliency (Jennings & Perez, 2020; Rooney & McNicholas, 2020; seemed to tolerate the stress with slight decreases over three months
Stogner et al., 2020), this is the first study to provide empirical data on after the lockdown. Nevertheless, the large inter-individual variance in
officers’ stress experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. The mixed- strain indicated that female officers with less work experience, feeling
method approach allowed us to test hypotheses that could confidently unprepared and engaging in negative maladaptive emotion regulation
be derived from the traditional stress research, but also to capture the are at risk to develop negative health consequences due to severe work
novel stressors and the variety of coping resources due to the unprece­ stress. Given the persistence of the pandemic and the warning of second
dented state of a global pandemic. Major methodical strengths of the waves, now is the time for LEAs to prepare the (vulnerable) officers for
study are the longitudinal design and the inclusion of five different these situations. Our results suggest that this requires three primary
European countries. However, only 10% of the participants completed paths: 1) Governments must ensure to enact unambiguous laws and
the questionnaires at three measurement points, which overidentifies increase public compliance through effective media communication, 2)
linear trajectories. Given the missing data, the integration of random LEAs must focus on being logistically prepared for viral outbreaks
slopes in the growth curve model would have been based on a large through stockpiling PPE, having policies for building personnel reserves
proportion of estimated data. Therefore, we only included fixed effects in action, and establishing efficient internal communication channels,
in the models. To increase sample sizes, we encouraged the responsible and 3) LEAs must provide officers with training to improve skills for
person in each LEA to widely distribute the online survey among their positive coping with exceptional situations and stress. Risk of infection

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M.O. Frenkel et al. Journal of Criminal Justice 72 (2021) 101756

and uncertainty were the major sources of stress. By being logistically Di Nota, P. M., & Huhta, J.-M. (2019). Complex motor learning and police training:
Applied, cognitive, and clinical perspectives. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1797.
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infection. Legislating and communication of unambiguous health safety Nater, U. M. (2015). Reciprocal relationship between acute stress and acute fatigue
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