'Dealing with people as we see fit’ : Framing police decisions to (and not to) arrest in the COVID-19 pandemic.

De Camargo, Camilla and Cram, Fred (2025) 'Dealing with people as we see fit’ : Framing police decisions to (and not to) arrest in the COVID-19 pandemic. Howard Journal of Crime and Justice. ISSN 2059-1098 (In Press)

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Abstract

The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic required police officers in England and Wales to enforce new public health restrictions (e.g., stay-at-home directives, social distancing requirements, and mask-mandates), as well as navigate the risk that COVID-19 posed to their own health and safety during interactions with the public. Findings from interviews carried out in 2020 and 2022 with 18 police officers from 11 different forces in England and Wales, suggest that well-established predictors of arrest decisions (e.g., offence severity, evidence, and/or the pursuit of culturally orientated objectives) were disrupted due to broader considerations, uniquely related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This article uses Keith Hawkins’ (2002) conceptual framework of criminal justice decisionmaking – surround, field and frame – as an explanatory device to help us understand arrest and non-arrest decisions of street-level police officers during this period, despite the existence of sufficient evidence to support such action.