Half of officers have considered quitting due to 'increasing challenges and stressors'

Fifty-four per cent of the officers, mostly police constables, said the increasing challenges and stressors of present-day policing and the prevalence of situations where they have to act against their own moral judgment were the main reasons behind their thoughts of leaving.

Earlier this week, footage emerged of officers from Merseyside Police issuing a £50 fine to a mother and daughter who had driven to a beach for a walk, in breach of Covid-19 regulations. The incident was filmed by reporters from the BBC and, as one of the officers walks away, he had be heard saying: “I felt so cruel doing that”. The force has since apologised and the fine has been revoked.

The poll of 406 serving officers across the country, commissioned by the Jubilee Centre for Character and virtues and conducted in January 2021, did, however, report some positive findings for the place of character and virtues in British policing.

It found that nearly four fifths (79 per cent) of police officers in the UK believe that character and virtues is a central part of police training, in order to carry out their duties

It also concluded that 76 per cent of those interviewed agreed that the Covid-19 pandemic has made policing more complicated and challenging.

The survey also found that more than three quarters (78 per cent) of officers agreed that their training equipped them to feel confident responding to the ethical dilemmas that they face at work.

Further, participants in the poll reported that honesty and bravery were the two most important virtues to them, personally. Participants also reported that bravery and honesty were the two most important virtues of the ideal police officer.

Despite this congruence between the top two virtues, participants reported some differences between other important virtues. Officers saw fairness, leadership and judgment as the next most important virtues in the ideal police officer. While officers also valued fairness as the third most important personal virtue, it was to a lesser extent (47 per cent) than in the ideal officer (59 per cent). They reported humour and kindness as fourth and fifth most important personal virtues.

In addition to the top five virtues, and across the list of 24 virtues that officers were presented with, they selected intellectual and performance virtues such as leadership, prudence and perspective as important to the ideal officer. Whereas, officers chose moral and intellectual virtues, such as love, humour, kindness and gratitude, as being important personally.

The poll offers a snapshot of the moral challenges that police officers in the UK face and how well equipped they consider themselves to be in facing those challenges.

The results reflect the ambivalent and ‘dilemmatic nature’ of contemporary policing. On the one hand, officers generally considered themselves to possess the most important virtues of their ideal officer, honesty and bravery.

They reported to rely on their own moral compass in dealing with problematic situations, and they consider their training to have prepared them well for navigating moral dilemmas at work.

However, they acknowledged the increasing challenges and stressors of present-day policing and the prevalence of situations where they have to act against their own moral judgment, to the extent that the majority of respondents have considered quitting their job in the last year.

Professor Kristján Kristjánsson, deputy director of the Jubilee Centre, reflected on the poll results: “These findings tell of police officers who are working under heightened pressure and stressors as they police our compliance with government lockdown restrictions. However, it is positive that the vast majority of police officers felt confident that their training has equipped them to respond to the moral aspect of policing. This gives us something to focus on in our work in the Jubilee Centre.”

The survey is the first data to be collected as part of the Jubilee Centre research on Virtues in Policing, which is part of a wider focus on ‘Virtues in the Professions’, which is looking at the place of character and virtues in policing and police science education today.

The sample is broadly representative of the most recent Home Office data on police force demographics.