American Lessons: The COVID-19 Pandemic and the US Supreme Court

Ever since the outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic in America in March 2020, several US states imposed harsh measures to combat the pandemic. Such state measures have at times seriously violated human rights, such as freedom of religion or freedom of movement. This chapter attempts to look at how the US Supreme Court has responded to the pandemic and reviewed several state measures over the past couple of years through selected cases on freedom of religion and compulsory vaccinations. We particularly look at its views on the role of the judiciary during the crisis, the scrutiny applied on human rights violations, as well as whether changes in the Court's composition during the Trump Era have in fact influenced its judicial reasoning. Overall, has the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on judicial review and the Court's role? If so, how?. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Cutting through the noise during crisis by enhancing the relevance of research to policymakers

Background:It is widely recognised that policymakers use research deemed relevant, yet little is understood about ways to enhance perceived relevance of research evidence. Observing policymakers' access of research online provides a pragmatic way to investigate predictors of relevance.Aims and objectives:This study investigates a range of relevance indicators including committee assignments, public statements, issue prevalence, or the policymaker's name or district.Methods:In a series of four rapid-cycle randomised control trials (RCTs), the present work systematically explores science communication strategies by studying indicators of perceived relevance. State legislators, state staffers, and federal staffers were emailed fact sheets on issues of COVID (Trial 1, N = 3403), exploitation (Trial 2, N = 6846), police violence (Trial 3, N = 3488), and domestic violence (Trial 4, N = 3888).Findings:Across these trials, personalising the subject line to the legislator's name or district and targeting recipients based on committee assignment consistently improved engagement. Mentions of subject matter in public statements was inconsistently associated, and state-level prevalence of the issue was largely not associated with email engagement behaviour.Discussion and conclusions:Together, these results indicate a benefit of targeting legislators based on committee assignments and of personalising the subject line with legislator information. This work further operationalises practical indicators of personal relevance and demonstrates a novel method of how to test science communication strategies among policymakers. Building enduring capacity for testing science communication will improve tactics to cut through the noise during times of political crisis.

Factors associated with fear of pandemic information received by Peruvian police and military personnel

Introduction: For police and military, access to suitable and truthful information has always been important, during the pandemic the need was even greater due to the tasks assigned to them as part of the front line against the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective: To determine the factors associated with fear of pandemic information received by Peruvian police and military personnel. Methods: Cross-sectional study with analytical procedures, 1 017 Peruvian police and military were surveyed, through surveys conducted during the pandemic, a validated test was used to measure the perception of fear or concern transmitted by the media, the frequencies and analytical results were reported. Results: The respondents perceived a lot of fear of social networks (22% strongly agree and 36% agree) and television (20% strongly agree and 32% agree). In the multivariate model, the military perceived less fear compared to the police (aPR: 0.65;CI95%: 0.49-0.88;value p= 0.004), in addition, the Internet was the medium that generated a greater frequency of perception of fear among the respondents (aPR: 1.65;CI95%: 1.04-2.61;value p= 0.032), adjusted for 3 variables. Conclusion: Television and social networks are the main media that generate fear among police and military;in addition, being scared was more associated with being informed through the Internet. © 2023, Editorial Ciencias Medicas. All rights reserved.

The spatial concentration, stability, and specialization of mental health calls for service: Evidence in support of proactive, place-based interventions

For many decades the police have been the de facto responders to persons with perceived mental illness (PwPMI). However, having the police in this role has come with negative repercussions for PwPMI, such as disproportionately experiencing criminalization and use of force. In recognizing these issues, the police-and more recently, the community-have developed responses that either seek to improve interactions between the police and PwPMI or remove the police from this role altogether. However, in either case, these efforts are reactivein nature, responding to crises that arguably could have been prevented had a timelier intervention taken place. Further, evidence on certain police responses to PwPMI, such as Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) and co-response teams, suggests that they endure deployment-related challenges, thus limiting their reach to PwPMI.Drawing from the Criminology of Place and existing place-based policing strategies, the present dissertation argues that efforts focused on respondingto PwPMI should instead be proactively deployed, targeting areas where interactions between police and PwPMI concentrate spatially. Doing so would not only result in efficient deployment of scarce resources but would permit police- and community-based efforts to have a greater reach to PwPMI and thus prevent future interactions with police. To-date, however, there have been few empirical and theoretical investigations into the spatial patterns of PwPMI calls for service that could inform such proactive, place-based efforts. Specifically, we do not currently understand: (1) the degree to which PwPMI calls for service concentrate within certain geographical contexts (such as a small city);(2) whether the degree of PwPMI call concentration and the location of these calls remain stable over time;and (3) what theoretical frameworks explain why PwPMI calls for service occur where they do. Drawing on seven years (2014-2020) of calls for service data from the Barrie Police Service and data from the 2016 Canadian Census, the present dissertation employs various methods of spatial analysis to fills these specific knowledge gaps.Although the theoretical investigation confirmed the findings of previous work that found no association between social disorganization theory and the spatial patterns of PwPMI calls for service, the present dissertation revealed: (1) PwPMI calls for service are highly concentrated within the context of a small city, even more so than what has previously been uncovered in larger jurisdictions;(2) the degree of PwPMI call concentration is stable over time, falling within a narrow proportional bandwidth of spatial units;and (3) PwPMI calls for service, and their concentrations, occur in the same places over time-even during the COVID-19 pandemic-and are thus spatially stable. As such, though more scholarship is needed on theories that might help explain why PwPMI calls occur where they do, the findings of the present dissertation strongly support the proactive, place-based deployment of resources to PwPMI. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The Role of Institutionalization Police Support in Emergency Situation: Evidence from Indonesia

Role of Police Supporting Institutions in an Emergency in Indonesia. Regulations related to police duties and the condition of medical personnel are actually at the forefront of emergencies and pandemic disasters, but in Indonesia the police also called the front guard in efforts to prevent the emergency spread of Covid-19. It can be seen if there is gaps in the implementation of police duties during an emergency. This study aims to find out the existence of police as the institution that having mandate to manage and handle emergencies situation such as pandemic of COVID-19. This study used doctrinal legal research as one of the legal research methods. The findings show that management of health protection in Indonesia particularly in pandemic situation had not maximal. As can be seen there are several barriers to Indonesian Police in handling the emergency situations. Firstly, the internal problem in the institution, then it needs a revitalization. Secondly, the lack of adequate funding for the police's performance. Thirdly, as well as the external cause is the lack of publick awareness or the culture of society to be able to cooperate with the police in preventing the spread of COVID-19 in Indonesia. © 2023, Lembaga Contrarius Indonesia. All rights reserved.

Soccer-Related Violence: The Police Response in Australia and in the United Kingdom

The apparent growing popularity of soccer, as a spectator sport, in Australia makes this an opportune time, especially after the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, to investigate its roots and comment on its future. The current A-League is the most successful incarnation of domestic soccer in Australia to date. As spectator numbers increase, clubs, stadium managers, spectators, police, and private security providers will play pivotal roles in the management of the sport. This paper draws on archival data from newspapers, official inquiries, football literature and statistical data to map the history of disorder and disasters at soccer matches in several countries. The causes of the disorder are complex and range from inadequate crowd control strategies to infrastructure failures. This paper examines both Australian and European history to map the effects of disorder at soccer matches and what tactics the police use to mitigate or reduce it. This mapping exercise concludes that all countries should adopt an approach of prevention rather than cure to overcome soccer's bad reputation, returning it to a family oriented recreational activity while maintaining high levels of safety and security in football grounds. The chapter concludes that to ensure safety and security at football matches, the police need to constantly monitor their tactics and act proactively but fairly to deal with soccer-related violence. This year, as spectators were largely excluded from attendance at live soccer matches during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a unique opportunity to address problems and issues to ensure the safety and security of football fans into the future. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.

Alcohol Misuse, Binge Drinking, and their Associations with Psychosocial Factors during COVID-19 among Harlem Residents in New York City.

This study examined alcohol misuse and binge drinking prevalence among Harlem residents, in New York City, and their associations with psycho-social factors such as substance use, depression symptom severity, and perception of community policing during COVID-19. An online cross-sectional study was conducted among 398 adult residents between April and September 2021. Participants with a score of at least 3 for females or at least 4 for males out of 12 on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test were considered to have alcohol misuse. Binge drinking was defined as self-reporting having six or more drinks on one occasion. Modified Poisson regression models were used to examine associations. Results showed that 42.7% used alcohol before COVID-19, 69.1% used it during COVID-19, with 39% initiating or increasing alcohol use during COVID-19. Alcohol misuse and binge drinking prevalence during COVID-19 were 52.3% and 57.0%, respectively. Higher severity of depression symptomatology, history of drug use and smoking cigarettes, and experiencing housing insecurity were positively associated with both alcohol misuse and binge drinking. Lower satisfaction with community policing was only associated with alcohol misuse, while no significant associations were found between employment insecurity and food insecurity with alcohol misuse or binge drinking. The findings suggest that Harlem residents may have resorted to alcohol use as a coping mechanism to deal with the impacts of depression and social stressors during COVID-19. To mitigate alcohol misuse, improving access to mental health and substance use disorder services, and addressing public safety through improving relations with police could be beneficial.

Balancing the Roles of Clinicians and Police in Separating Firearms from People in a Dangerous Mental Health Crisis: Legal Rules, Policy Tools, and Ethical Considerations.

In COVID's immediate wake, the 2020 death toll from a different enemy of the public's health - gun violence - ticked up by 15 percent in the United States from the previous year. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Caniglia v. Strom that will allow people who have recently threatened suicide - with a gun - to keep unsecured guns in their home unless police take time to obtain a search warrant to remove them.

A Biological Approach to Building Resilience and Wellness Capacity Among Police Exposed to Posttraumatic Stress Injuries: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Law enforcement officers are routinely exposed to hazardous, disturbing events that can impose severe stress and long-term psychological trauma. As a result, police and other public safety personnel (PSP) are at increased risk of developing posttraumatic stress injuries (PTSIs) and disruptions to the autonomic nervous system (ANS). ANS functioning can be objectively and noninvasively measured by heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Traditional interventions aimed at building resilience among PSP have not adequately addressed the physiological ANS dysregulations that lead to mental and physical health conditions, as well as burnout and fatigue following potential psychological trauma. OBJECTIVE: In this study, we will investigate the efficacy of a web-based Autonomic Modulation Training (AMT) intervention on the following outcomes: (1) reducing self-reported symptoms of PTSI, (2) strengthening ANS physiological resilience and wellness capacity, and (3) exploring how sex and gender are related to baseline differences in psychological and biological PTSI symptoms and response to the AMT intervention. METHODS: The study is comprised of 2 phases. Phase 1 involves the development of the web-based AMT intervention, which includes 1 session of baseline survey measures, 6 weekly sessions that integrate HRV biofeedback (HRVBF) training with meta-cognitive skill practice, and 1 session of follow-up survey measures. Phase 2 will use a cluster randomized control design to test the effectiveness of AMT on the following prepost outcomes: (1) self-report symptoms of PTSI and other wellness measures; (2) physiological indicators of health and resilience including resting HR, HRV, and RSA; and (3) the influence of sex and gender on other outcomes. Participants will be recruited for an 8-week study across Canada in rolling cohorts. RESULTS: The study received grant funding in March 2020 and ethics approval in February 2021. Due to delays related to COVID-19, phase 1 was completed in December 2022, and phase 2 pilot testing began in February 2023. Cohorts of 10 participants in the experimental (AMT) and control (prepost assessment only) groups will continue until a total of 250 participants are tested. Data collection from all phases is expected to conclude in December 2025 but may be extended until the intended sample size is reached. Quantitative analyses of psychological and physiological data will be conducted in conjunction with expert coinvestigators. CONCLUSIONS: There is an urgent need to provide police and PSP with effective training that improves physical and psychological functioning. Given that help-seeking for PTSI is reduced among these occupational groups, AMT is a promising intervention that can be completed in the privacy of one's home. Importantly, AMT is a novel program that uniquely addresses the underlying physiological mechanisms that support resilience and wellness promotion and is tailored to the occupational demands of PSP. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05521360; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05521360. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/33492.

Perceived stress and mental health during the pandemic of COVID-19: an examination of Taiwanese police officers

PurposeThis study aims to examine Taiwanese male and female police officers' perceived stress during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachData were analyzed based on surveys conducted with 1,671 officers in various cities and counties between May and July of 2021, during the period of level 3 alert of COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan.FindingsIt was found that officers who perceived poor inter-agency coordination and higher risk of infection, and those who were assigned to home quarantine duty and stationed in the metropolitan areas of Taipei, which suffered the worst spread of infected cases, were more likely to exhibit a higher level of stress. On the other hand, police identity, COVID-19 self-legitimacy, supervisor support, COVID-19 information and adaptive emotion regulation were found to be associated with an enhanced level of mental health.Research limitations/implicationsThe surveys were conducted at the beginning of the community outbreak. Given the cross sectional nature of the data, the findings may not reflect officers' mental health at different phases of the pandemic.Originality/valueSuch study can add a cross-national perspective that can be utilized to generalize about policy perspectives related to police mental health at times of health crises, such as COVID-19 pandemic.

Retail Crime - A Perfect Storm

In recent years there has been a noticeable increase in crime and theft aimed at retail establishments. Often these events involve organised groups that systematically steal and sell in-demand items. More recently, there has also been an increase in crowd or mob-based looting events, presenting merchants with overwhelming circumstances outside of their ability to control. This study examines various influences that contribute to this dilemma. Factors commonly believed to contribute to theft and looting that are discussed include adjustments made in criminal charging and prosecution of retail thefts, current public events focusing on police violence, prosecutorial reforms, and the impact of COVID-19 on law enforcement responses.

Police Resilience as a Multilevel Balance: Needs and Resources for Victim Support Officers

Providing face-to-face support to victims entails one the most intense stress- and trauma-laden exchanges of law enforcement tasks, which frequently triggers long lasting negative effects on police officer's psychological wellbeing. When exploring this phenomenon, police resilience is often interpreted as police officers' and organization's capacity to react and recover from negative experiences and impediments, and as such it may be perceived as both a trait and a trainable and promotable skill. Yet, in very recent times, police resilience has faced new or transformed challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as victims, citizens, and public institutions have encountered new needs and situations. Drawing from a unique qualitative, in-depth research with police officers that provide support to victims of gender-based and domestic violence, this paper analyzes officers' needs and challenges regarding their interactions with victims, colleagues, superiors, and other occupational demands, as they interplay into stress and trauma that may lead to burnout and compassion fatigue. Illustrated with the empirical findings of the case study of the Catalonia's Mossos d'Esquadra police corps, the paper explores how officers negotiate individuals' expectations, needs, and procedures signals towards potential challenges and threats to their psychological wellbeing with implications for police forces and other public and private institutions. The specific needs and demands of the participants' policing, related to support to gender-based and domestic violence, presents an in-depth analysis of how stress and trauma are understood and experienced from the police officers' perspectives.

Race, poverty and unemployment as quantitative predictors of voter turnout in St. Louis amidst COVID-19 and a racial justice movement

PurposeThe 2020 election season brought with it a global public health pandemic and a reenergized racial justice movement. Given the social context of the intertwined pandemics of COVID-19 and racialized violence, do the traditional predictors of voter turnout – race, poverty rates and unemployment rates – remain significant?Design/methodology/approachUsing county-level, publicly available data from twelve Midwest states with similar demographic and cultural characteristics, voter turnout in St. Louis City and St. Louis County were predicted using race, poverty rates and unemployment rates.FindingsFindings demonstrate that despite high concentration of poverty rates and above average percentages of Black residents, voter turnout was significantly higher than predicted. Additionally, findings contradict previous studies that found higher unemployment rates resulted in higher voter participation rates.Originality/valueThis study suggests that the threat of COVID-19 and fear of an increase in police violence may have introduced physical risk as a new theoretical component to rational choice theory for the general election in 2020.

"Sniffing" out SARS-CoV-2 in Arizona working dogs: an exploratory serosurvey.

Susceptibility to and infection with SARS-CoV-2 in companion animals has been well-documented throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Surveillance for the virus in dogs has largely been focused on household pets; however, other canine populations may also be impacted. We partnered with a local veterinary hospital with a high working dog patient volume to conduct viral and neutralizing antibody testing in working dogs and identify potential risk factors in the dog's work and home environments. Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in law enforcement and security working dogs in Arizona found 24.81% (32/129) of dogs to be seropositive. Thirteen dogs presenting with clinical signs or with reported exposure to COVID-19 in the 30 days prior to sample collection were also tested by PCR; all samples were negative. 90.7% (n = 117) of dogs were reported to be asymptomatic or have no change in performance at the time of sampling. Two dogs (1.6%) had suspected anosmia as reported by their handlers; one of which was seropositive. Known exposure to the dog's COVID-19 positive handler or household member was identified as a significant risk factor. Demographics factors including sex, altered status, and type of work were not associated with canine seropositivity. Further work is warranted to understand the impact of SARS-CoV-2 and other infectious diseases in working dogs.

The Criminal Justice Activism of Naomi Osaka: A Case Study in the Criminology of Celebrity Culture.

This paper examines the criminal justice activism of tennis star Naomi Osaka as it evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic regarding matters of police violence and racial justice. Calls to reform and defund the police received much attention in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020. The Floyd killing also motivated Naomi Osaka to begin her criminal justice activism, which has generally been very well received. Adopting a constructionist perspective, I investigate how Osaka's criminal justice activism has, in the broader context of the development of celebrity culture, been subjectively motivated and inter-subjectively received by the public and in the news media. Theoretically this paper has the two-fold objective of developing a model of the conditions favorable to the successful reception of celebrity activism and, additionally, of suggesting how such criminologically relevant activism can be understood in terms of a process of celebritization of criminal justice and police reform as causes worthy of attention. This case study of Osaka's criminal justice activism reveals the important role a celebrity can play in influencing public sentiments about key aspects of policing and crime control as an important element of criminal justice culture.

We're All in This Together: Digital Performances and Socially Distanced Spectatorship

The digital performances forwarding discourses of "we're all in it together" proliferated in the opening months of the COVID-19 pandemic, performing the social legibility of pain and loss within the public sphere. The body takes on an indexical force in such performances, constructing a symbolic community defined by the shared experience of sheltering-in-place. This performs social distancing, culturally acclimating audiences to a world in which we connect virtually but remain apart in our bodies. This has a legitimate public-health utility. That said, such performances can inadvertently construct the "we" in "we are all in it together" in a way that centers the stay-at-home experience while flattening racial and economic divisions. This essay examines two digital performances focusing on the experiences of diverse artists in quarantined isolation: Mike Sears and Lisa Berger's Ancient and Emily Mast and Yehuda Duenyas's How Are We. Both performances situate the act of sheltering-in-place as the shared facet of community belonging, utilizing aesthetic strategies that either obscure or amplify the ways that hierarchical systems of power influenced inequitable lived experiences of quarantined isolation.

Barreiras para Adoção da Telessaúde em Instituições Militares na Amazônia

The objective of the research was to identify the barriers to telehealth adoption from the perspective of health professionals from the Military Police of the state of Pará in the Amazon. The analysis of evidence showed that of the seven aspects identified as barriers to the adoption of telehealth, the organizational issue was the most strongly pointed out. The main contribution of this research was the construction of a framework on the barriers to telehealth implementation in the view of health managers who serve regions with large territorial extensions. O Hospital Militar de Área de Sao Paulo (HMASP) já vem adotando essa prática realizando teleconsultas em campanha e até mesmo transmissao de cirurgias ao vivo.

Freedom to Pray, Not to Protest

The article focuses on confirmation of Justice Amy Barrett to the Supreme Court in 2020 and its accompanying ideological shift further to the right and stays of COVID-19 restrictions. It mentions Tandon v. Newsom went so far as to create new precedent on how the Court evaluates the constitutionality of government restrictions impacting religious expression. It also mentions Court has provided no recourse for groups protesting institutional racism and police brutality.

Abolition as Durational Performance: Mutual Aid Aesthetics in Chicago's Southeast Asian Neighborhood

Responses to rising anti-Asian violence during the COVID-19 pandemic prompted multiple, often conflicting, actions including calls to defund the police, calls for more police, bystander interventions, and the exploitation of violence to promote influencers' brands. In Chicago's "Argyle" Uptown neighborhood, an area known as a Southeast Asian refugee business district, Asian Americans and local white government officials promoting liberal multiculturalist urban renewal projects used the news after the Atlanta spa shooting to advance their plans for gentrification and increased policing. How do we understand the colliding narratives of racial antagonisms, racial solidarities, and the genocidal logics of urban renewal, as they emerge at the intersection of settler colonialism and the afterlife of slavery? How is this question complicated by the entwined issues of refugee resettlement and multiculturalist solutions to anti-Asian violence? In this article, I argue abolition as durational performance offers an embodied, performance studies based analytic and methodology for the study and praxis of abolition. Abolition as durational performance centers the creation of life-affirming institutions, relations, and spaces while navigating the histories and bodily impacts of white supremacy, anti-Blackness, native genocide, and US liberal war on refugee resettlement as it is enacted through urban renewal and redevelopment projects. I focus on Axis Lab, a community-based arts and architecture organization based in Chicago, which launched its mutual aid and public arts project in June 2020. This is an abolitionist project inspired by the Black Panther breakfast and political education programs.

The spatial (in)stability of mental health calls for police service

Research summary: Inspired by studies on crime concentration, scholars have begun examining the spatial patterns of other issues under the police mandate, such as calls for service involving persons with perceived mental illness (PwPMI). While findings show that PwPMI calls for service concentrate in a few number of places, we do not know whether the concentration of these calls fall within a narrow bandwidth of spatial units nor whether these calls are spatially stable. Drawing on 7 years of calls for service data from the Barrie Police Service, this study tests for the temporal stability of PwPMI call for service concentrations at two units of spatial analysis and applies a longitudinal variation of the Spatial Point Pattern Test to assess the spatial stability of these calls at both the global and local levels. The results reveal that concentrations of PwPMI calls for service not only fall within a narrow proportional bandwidth of spatial units, but are spatially stable, even during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Policy implications: Existing police‐ and community‐based efforts that respond to PwPMI in the community are tasked with responding to crises that could have been prevented with timelier intervention. Drawing from crime‐focused, place‐based policing strategies whose deployment is informed by the spatial concentration of crime, scholars have similarly argued that knowledge on where PwPMI calls for service concentrate can be leveraged to inform and deploy place‐based efforts whose focus is to assist PwPMI in a proactive capacity. The findings of the present study further substantiates the deployment of PwPMI‐focused police‐ and community‐based resources as proactive, place‐based efforts. In doing so, these efforts could not only prevent mental health crises from occurring but could prevent future police‐involved calls for service and thus reduce the footprint of the police in the lives of PwPMI in a reactive capacity. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Criminology & Public Policy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)