Sanja Kutnjak Ivković

Short Resume

Sanja Kutnjak Ivković, Ph.D., S.J.D., is a Professor at the School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University. She holds a doctorate in criminology and a doctorate in law. She currently serves as a Co-Editor of Policing: An International Journal. Professor Kutnjak Ivković has served as Chair of the American Society of Criminology International Division, as Vice Chair and Chair of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences International Section and is a co-founder and Co-Chair of the Law and Society Association Collaborative Research Network on Lay Participation.

Title of the presentation

A Comparative Approach to Policing during the COVID-19 Pandemic: On Experiences and Lessons Learned

Abstract

The police worldwide were in a crisis mode when the COVID-19 pandemic started. On the one hand, to protect their employees, police administrators had to limit police officers’ contact internally, within the police agency, and externally, with the community. On the other hand, to keep providing police services to the community, police administrators had to put police officers in contact with the community. In response, police agencies across the world have transformed their internal organizations and external operations. This presentation pursues a comparative approach to explore the homogeneity of police officers’ lived experiences during the pandemic. Based on the surveys of police officers from ten countries, this presentation explores police officers’ perceptions about the operational and organizational changes brought on by the pandemic. It continues with the analysis of police officers’ assessments of work difficulty and police officer stress. Finally, the presentation discusses police officers’ recommendations regarding what police agencies should learn from the experience of policing during the COVID-19 pandemic to prepare them to deal with the future emergencies in a more effective and successful way.

Keywords

policing, COVID-19 pandemic, patrol, investigation, stress