Policemen, COVID-19, and police culture: navigating the pandemic with colleagues, the public, and family

Scholars have long identified the culture of policing as resisting change and impeding reform (Campeau, 2019. Institutional myths and generational boundaries: cultural inertia in the police organisation. Policing and society, 29 (1), 69–84. doi:10.1080/10439463.2017.1371718; Chan, 1996 Chan, J., 1996. Changing police culture. British journal of criminology, 36 (1), 109–134. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjc.a014061.Crossref, Web of Science ® , Google Scholar. Changing police culture. British journal of criminology, 36 (1), 109–134. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjc.a014061), and the advent of COVID-19 has been optimal for studying this culture. Early research on the pandemic identified some temporary cultural shifts within policing or at least the potential for these (e.g. Alcadipani, 2020 Alcadipani, R., 2020. Pandemic and macho organizations: wake-up call or business as usual? Gender, work and organization, 27 (5), 734–746. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12466.Crossref , Google Scholar. Pandemic and macho organizations: wake-up call or business as usual? Gender, work and organization, 27 (5), 734–746). Our research analyzes data from 18 qualitative interviews with Canadian police officers who identified as men about their experiences at work and home, approximately five months into the pandemic. Drawing on Campeau's (2015. “Police culture” at work: making sense of police oversight. British journal of criminology, 55, 669–687. doi:10.1093/bjc/azu093) theorising of police culture as a resource, we illustrate how officers drew on the macho police culture ‘toolkit’ differently depending on the social context. With colleagues, they normalised risks posed by the pandemic; when interacting with the public, they highlighted the risks around policing during the pandemic; and with family, officers both downplayed risks at work to reassure their children of their safety and highlighted pandemic-related risks at home with their families. Our research points to the importance of recognising that culture is not homogenous; rather it is taken up differently depending on the organisation, the social context, and the moment in time.