Suchergebnisse

There is a considerable body of literature that outlines the dangers of mobile phone use by drivers. However, there is very little research that explores the role and effectiveness of attempts to tackle this specific road user problem. Generally, normative motives are more likely to generate compliance with traffic law, and are more likely to be developed through approaches which focus on engagement and education. There would seem to be little potential for them to be developed through the use of penalty points and fines, which rely on more instrumental logic. Nonetheless, the decision was made in the UK in recent years to cease offering 'courses' (inputs to detected phone-using drivers offered as an alternative to prosecution) for mobile phone offences. This decision was made despite a lack of evidence one way or another about their effectiveness in tackling both handheld mobile phone use and handsfree mobile phone distraction – a form of distraction not explicitly covered in law. This research project aimed to explore driver education as an alternative to prosecution for mobile phone use while driving offences, focusing on perceptions and experiences of one particular educational intervention. This paper draws on 46 semi-structured interviews with those involved in delivering a specific intervention aimed at reducing handheld mobile phone use by drivers that was previously offered as an alternative to prosecution in the UK; the police officers identifying offenders for referral to such courses, those delivering the intervention, drivers attending the course as an alternative to prosecution and members of the public attending the course as general education. Four key themes, with underpinning subthemes, emerged; 1) Police officer discretion and entry into the criminal justice system 2) Police-public interactions, 3) Course experiences, and 4) Post-course considerations. Firstly, police officer discretion is an important determinant of criminal justice system outcome, based on subjective rather than legal ...

Police organisations have a wealth of experience in responding to emergencies, but COVID-19 is unprecedented in terms of the speed, scale and complexity of developing doctrine and its implementation by officers. The crisis also threw into sharp relief the fact that police policy and, crucially, practice are always implemented within wider social, political and economic contexts. Using online survey data collected from 325 police officers based at forces operating across different UK contexts (cities, conurbations, towns and rural areas), we seek to understand officer experiences and perceptions of policing COVID-19. In particular, we examine whether (internally) organisational climate and (externally) the UK government's response to COVID-19 were important to (a) officers' support for police use of force at times of emergency, (b) officer's support for procedurally just policing at times of emergency, and (c) their health and well-being; and whether identification and perceptions of self-legitimacy mediate the associations between these variables. We show that a positive organisational climate was associated with less support for police use of force, more support for procedurally just policing and increased police officer health and well-being. Our results, however, suggest potential negative correlates of police officer self-legitimacy: higher levels of self-legitimacy were associated with poorer police officer health and well-being and increased support for police use of force. These results have important implications for our understanding of police officer well-being and police officers' commitment to democratic modes of policing when faced with policing a pandemic.