Stumbling from One Disaster to Another: The COVID-19 Pandemic and Mental Health Calls for Police Service across Canada

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Andresen, M
Hodgkinson, T
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2022
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Abstract

Abstact: The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on crime in Canada and internationally. However, less is known about the impact of the pandemic on police-reported mental-health-related incidents. We explore three types of mental-health-related incidents (suicide and suicide attempts, Mental Health Act apprehensions, and mental health [other]) against property and violent crimes, across 13 police jurisdictions in Canada. Despite an international decline in most crime types during COVID-19, we find general stability across police-reported mental-health-related incidents. These findings suggest that the change in social behaviour that reduced opportunities for crime did not have a similar effect on mental-health-related incidents. It also suggests that calls for increased police budgets to respond to expected increases in mental-health-related incidents may be unjustified.

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Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice

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64

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4

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Police administration, procedures and practice

Criminology

Law in context

Legal systems

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Andresen, M; Hodgkinson, T, Stumbling from One Disaster to Another: The COVID-19 Pandemic and Mental Health Calls for Police Service across Canada, Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2022, 64 (4), pp. 1-20

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