Kyprianides, Arabella;
Bradford, Ben;
(2025)
Policing and mental health: A rapid evidence assessment of the patterning of police activity.
The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles
10.1177/0032258x251318210.
(In press).
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Abstract
Existing evidence suggests exposure to police activity negatively impacts the mental health of the policed. But research on whether, and why, police activity is correlated with the prevalence of mental health challenges among individuals and in specific areas remains piecemeal. We conducted a Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) of the literature examining the association between policing and mental health, with a focus on investigating whether people in poor mental health are more likely to interact with police, whether police activity is higher in areas where people face more mental health challenges, and the reasons for these interactions. A total of 31 studies exploring the scale and reach of police encounters involving individuals dealing with mental health issues were included. The evidence suggests a pattern of heightened policing activity in specific geographic areas where individuals contend with elevated mental health challenges, and police spend more time dealing with individuals with mental health issues compared to the general population. These interactions occur for a wide variety of reasons, and people with mental health conditions encounter the police as victims, offenders, people in need and in other roles. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Policing and mental health: A rapid evidence assessment of the patterning of police activity |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/0032258x251318210 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/0032258x251318210 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
| Keywords: | Policing, mental health, review |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Security and Crime Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10204708 |
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