Policing with a public health lens – Moving towards an understanding of crime as a public health issue

Abstract

Policing organizations are currently experiencing more pressure than ever to address systemic racism and police brutality. Advocates and academics have suggested a range of changes, such as defunding the police, moving towards more body-worn cameras, ensuring higher educational levels of new recruits, implicit bias training, and so on. Our article draws attention and advocates for a different avenue: moving our understanding of crime towards a public health issue. By drawing on some data from the University of Alberta Prison Project, we argue that looking at justice clients with a public health lens would significantly change the way police are trained and respond to incidents. We believe this would have monumental consequences for both justice clients and policing organizations: justice clients will benefit from a police service that is trauma informed, compassionate, and understands their client base, while policing organizations will arguably increase their trust relationship with the public, therefore building legitimacy in the community.

Examining Implementation of Crisis Centers on Police Officer Emergency Hold Petitions

“…There is an increasing call to reimagine policing within a public health lens (see. Bucerius et al, 2021 ). Embedded within this public health ideology is a reorientation towards holistic responsivity that is outcome focused on the individual (the case management approach), leverages improvements in local community resourcing, is contextually aware, innovative (looking to improve processes and outcomes) and mindful of equity.…”

Universal precautions: A methodology for trauma-informed justice

“…Using this same methodology for trauma in the justice system would protect the officers as well as the Justice Client. The parallel can be drawn that trauma is also a health issue, and therefore police should be looking at this through a public health lens (Bucerius, Oriola, & Jones, 2021). If the vast majority of Justice Clients have experienced trauma then the criminality and behaviours may be symptomatic of the traumatic injury.…”

“…There has been a move towards blending police and public health to work towards the concept of community safety and well-being (Bucerius, Oriola, & Jones, 2021;Williams & Jones, 2020). However, this focuses primarily on what police are doing and is not as prescriptive on how police interact with the community.…”

‘It is not about punishment, it’s about protection’: Policing ‘vulnerabilities’ and the securitisation of public health in the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Public health is often characterised by criminologists as a more humane paradigm that can overcome some of the discriminatory excesses associated with traditional approaches to policing social order (e.g. Bucerius et al, 2021). Yet historically, public health initiatives have differentially targeted lower socio-economic and ethnic ‘others’ since their emergence in England in the early 19th century.…”