Portuguese Police Research Articles

Reliability of Critical Fitness Tests for Police Officers

Police officers in training (cadets and provisional officers) are the population most tested in fitness attributes compared to police officers already in operational service. As such, this study aims (i) to validate a fitness assessment protocol for police officers, and (ii) to confirm the effect of sex on fitness performance. In this methodological study, 122 cadets from the Portuguese Police Academy participated and carried out the fitness protocol (horizontal jump, handgrip strength, 60 s of sit-ups, and 20 m shuttle run tests) in two moments (test–retest), separated by one week (seven days). Complementarily, the results of the first assessment were used to study the effect of sex on fitness performance. Superior fitness performances were observed on the retest, with an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.89 and a standard error of the mean of 0.45 in the fitness assessment protocol and significantly higher values (in all fitness assessments) in male participants. In conclusion, the fitness assessment protocol achieved high reliability in terms of reproducibility (which indicates that it is a valid and reliable protocol), and the influence of sex on the police officers’ fitness profile was confirmed.

Does professional identity mediate the relationship between emotional labour and work engagement? A study with Portuguese police officers

Police officers work under demanding emotional, psychological and physical circumstances while interacting with victims, criminals and colleagues. They are faced daily with emotional demands to express positive emotions and, at the same time, are required to suppress negative emotions. Consequently, this influences the emotional regulation strategies (i.e., deep- or surface-acting) they choose to use, which impacts their professional identity and work engagement. We conducted a study to understand whether professional identity mediates the relationship between emotional labour (demands and strategies) and work engagement in a sample of Portuguese police officers. For this purpose, we used a set of four self-administered questionnaires: Emotional Work Requirements Scale (EWRS), Emotional Labour Scale (ELS), Social Identity Scale (SIS) and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). 924 police officers from the Portuguese Public Security Police (PSP) participated voluntarily. Our results show that there is a mediating effect of professional identity on the relationship between surface-acting strategies, positive emotion expression and negative emotion suppression demands, and work engagement. Professional identity fully mediates the relationship between negative emotion suppression demands and work engagement. Nevertheless, there seems to be no mediating effect of professional identity on the relationship between deep-acting strategies and emotional variety and intensity demands, and work engagement. To the best of our knowledge, no other study has analysed the aforementioned variables in Portuguese police forces. Meaning that our study is ground-breaking, with clear implications. Further research is needed on this subject to understand better the relationship among these variables in the police population.

Exploring the Relationship between Decision-Making Styles and Emotion Regulation: A Study of Police Officials in Portuguese Public Security

In public security policing, where pressure is constant, effective decision-making and emotion regulation are critical, especially for leaders. These processes significantly impact upon work results, performance, officials’ health, employee well-being, and the organizational environment. This study aims to broaden the understanding of decision-making styles and emotion-regulation strategies used by police officials in the Portuguese Public Security Police (PSP). We surveyed 138 Portuguese high-ranking police officials using two self-response questionnaires, namely the Emotion Regulation in the Workplace (ReTrab) and the Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire (MDMQ), both translated, adapted, and validated for the Portuguese police context. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted, followed by correlations to explore the relationship between emotion-regulation strategies and decision-making styles. Finally, through a regression analysis, the potential impact of this relationship was assessed. The results reveal that specific emotion-regulation strategies, except for adaptive ones, significantly influence and modify the decision-making styles of PSP officials. Dysfunctional and maladaptive emotion-regulation strategies lead to less adaptive decision-making styles, while functional strategies promote more adaptive styles. These findings have theoretical and practical implications, offering valuable insights for targeted training programs and interventions in the law-enforcement sector, benefiting the police personnel, the communities they serve, and public perceptions about police.

Female-perpetrated Intimate Partner Violence Against Men: Perceptions of Portuguese Police Officers

Female-perpetrated Intimate Partner Violence Against Men: Perceptions of Portuguese Police Officers

Constrains in the articulation between profession, family, and personal life: a case study of the Portuguese police (PSP).

The dangers and stresses of a police officer's career cause physical and psychological distress which in turn cause considerable challenges for the integration of professional, family, and personal life. This study focuses on the conditions that influence this articulation between the personal, family, and professional lives of Portuguese Police (PSP) officers. A questionnaire survey was applied to 414 police officers from 11 divisions of COMETLIS. At the empirical level, several models were tested to assess the articulation between the professional, family, and personal lives of police officers. The results highlight the influence of having young children, elderly people or other dependents living in the family home, as well as the employee's age, on the job's interaction with professional life. At a professional level, the variables shift work, professional category, years of service and working away from home were identified by the officers as conditioning factors in the work-family-personal life balance. Sex differences in the articulation of professional, family, and personal life were also observed.

More than Psychometric Properties of the Fear of Covid-19 Scale. The Struggle of the Portuguese Police Officers

The Covid-19 pandemic conveyed consequences for people’s physical and mental health. During the worst pandemic scenarios, police officers were one of the most exposed populations. This situation brought these professionals unusual responsibilities, such as adjust work shifts and allocate police officers from operational and administrative services to the Covid-19 supervision teams and put them at an elevated risk of contracting the virus because they are also frontline workers too, and they often did not have personal protective equipment. Due to this, the main objective of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of a Portuguese version of the Fear of Covid-19 among police officers, as well as to know how the fear of Covid-19 relates to the mental health during the worst wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Portugal. Participants were 174 police officers aged between 23 and 58 years old (M = 40.81; SD = 6.83) who completed the Fear of Covid-19 Scale, the Operational Police Stress Questionnaire, and the Posttraumatic Disorder Checklist for DSM-5. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed a good adjustment fit for the two-factor model. Construct validity was supported, and the internal consistency was good for both periods of assessment. The model proved invariant for both groups (pre and during lockdown) at the measurement, scalar, and structural levels. Study findings suggest that the Portuguese Version of FCV-19S is a reliable measure to assess the fear of Covid-19 among police officers, including during the pandemic development.

Protective and Enabling Factors That Facilitate Undercover Police Work: A Qualitative Study

Inadequate coping strategies in dealing with occupational stress have been linked to negative outcomes such as burnout. Research in police forces has somewhat overlooked protective factors that sustain this type of work. This study aimed to explore coping and detection avoidance strategies that enable police officers to be effective undercover operatives. This qualitative study was part of a wider mixed methods project. Participants were recruited from a Portuguese Police Force. Twenty-five police officers with undercover/plainclothes experience were interviewed using non-probability purposive sampling. Results of the study identified seven themes which addressed the research aims: ‘Secrecy’, ‘Work Satisfaction’, ‘Undercover Tactics’, ‘Stress’, ‘Deception’, ‘Support’ and ‘Things to Improve’. Overall, the findings of this study provide some support to the scarce literature available on this topic. The study indicates that participants generally seem able to cope well with detection avoidance strategies (e.g. secrecy, adaptation to the environment, use of cover stories/improvisation, deception and submersion to fictitious identities). Having an appropriate selection of undercover operatives is crucial to determine their psychological health and safety. The need for more research in this area is highlighted and discussed in reference to alternative study designs. In addition, an overview of implications for practice is provided.

Crowdfunding as Entrepreneurial Funding for Investigative Journalism in Portugal

The 2007 financial and economic subprime crisis arising from the collapse of the Lehman Brothers Bank in the USA had severe impacts on all the economic sectors. Journalism in Portugal was highly affected, and the most remarkable impacts led to editorial budget cuts. These cuts led to a drastic decrease in human resources in newsrooms, leading to a consequent breach of investigative journalism. These aspects resulted in a surge in unemployment for many experienced journalists, a decrease in the quality of information, and the consequent impoverishment and reduction of research journalism, with losses for the entire Portuguese society. Considering this context there is the need to explore alternative sources of funding for research journalism. Crowdfunding has been portrayed as an alternative to traditional models of financing research journalism, capable of generating a new dynamic, to provide for a more skilled and informed society. The main goal of this paper is to analyze crowdfunding as a tool to fund Portuguese investigative journalism. The methods include a narrative literature review on the causes, impacts, and consequences of the decrease in Portuguese investigative journalism and a case study methodology focused on the Portuguese platform of journalism crowdfunding ‘I Fund News’. In addition, qualitative research was applied to analyze the curricula of Portuguese journalism degrees with minors in entrepreneurship, business, and economics. The results show that the number of ECTS courses in entrepreneurship, business, and economics in journalism and communication degrees is very low in the Portuguese higher education sector. A relationship between entrepreneurship, business, economics, and the capacity for journalists to readapt and find the necessary funding sources is established. These results may be of interest to Portuguese police makers and higher education stakeholders, to promote the development of study programs with increased entrepreneurship, business, and economics courses. More literate journalists in the referred subjects may enhance their entrepreneurial potential and, consequently, their freelance potential to develop investigative journalism projects.

Four-Year Training Course for Police Officers (CFOP) and Fitness Outcomes of Police Academy Cadets: A Cohort Study from 2004 to 2020.

This study examines the effect of gender, age, and a 4-year training course for police officers (CFOP) on the physical fitness attributes of Portuguese police academy cadets. This longitudinal cohort study considered 686 police cadets (female, n = 131; male, n = 555 male), corresponding to 2578 fitness assessments (female, n = 509; male, n = 2069). The database of police cadets' physical fitness evaluations (from 2004/2005 to 2019/2020) comprises body size, speed, agility, strength, flexibility, and aerobic capacity first assessment (T0) and evaluations at the end of the first four years of the CFOP (T1, T2, T3, T4). Results showed that (i) female cadets are younger (p < 0.05), shorter, lighter, less fast, less agile, less strong, and perform worse in aerobic capacity assessments than male cadets (all, p < 0.001) but perform better in the flexibility assessment (p < 0.001); (ii) female cadets > 29 years are significantly heavier, slower, jump less, perform fewer sit-ups, and perform less on the Cooper test (but they have more handgrip strength), and male cadets > 29 years are significantly heavier, slower, jump less, perform fewer sit-ups, and have less flexibility and aerobic capacity (still, they have superior back and lumbar strength and handgrip strength); and (iii) from T0 to T4 (Δ), female cadets are significantly faster (60 m, -0.32 s; slalom, -0.78 s), jump further (+4 cm), have more abdominal strength endurance (+2.6 repetitions) and more back and lumbar strength (+89.8 kg), and male cadets are significantly heavier (+3.27 kg), faster (60 m, -0.23 s; 30 m, -0.15 s; slalom, -0.91 s), jump further (+8 cm), complete more repetitions in the sit-ups (+4.9 repetitions) and in pull-ups (+2.5 repetitions) and have more back and lumbar strength (+92.1 kg) and handgrip strength (+8.6 kg) but a lower aerobic capacity (Cooper test, -74.8 m; VO2max, -1.3 mL/kg/min) when compared to T0. The study's findings lead to widely accepted conclusions within the discipline. Nevertheless, this work provides valuable insights into the impact of various factors on the physical fitness of Portuguese police academy cadets, i.e.: (i) it is an essential study with practical implications for recruitment, training, and the ongoing development of Portuguese police academy cadets and police officers; and (ii) these results can also assist in tailoring training programs to different age groups and genders, which is crucial in police training.

Is there a right number? The fragmentation of interest representation in Portuguese police unions

In many countries, the right of police to unionise has still not been achieved or has only recently taken place. After decades of pressure, Portuguese police gained the right to unionise in the 21st century. Following legislation in 2002, several national police unions appeared and, in 2019, they had reached a disproportionate total of 19 unions, while working conditions were deteriorating and a Facebook-organised protest started gaining relevance. Through interviews with every police union and the police administration, complemented by secondary data, we first demonstrate how the 2002 law was a structure of opportunity enabling the proliferation of unions driven by individual motivations. Second, we portray how fragmentation of unions contributed to deadlocked negotiations leading older unions and mass media to demand new legislation. We conclude with the relevance of organisational and institutional processes into the provision of objective, predictable and proportional criteria for union representativeness.

Connecting the Dots: Occupational Stressors and PTSD Symptoms as Serial Mediators of the Relationship between Fear of COVID-19 and Burnout among Portuguese Police Officers

Police officers are exposed to several operational and organizational stressors that significantly impact on their mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic was a new stressor that further exacerbated existing stressors, highlighting the need for a better understanding of its impact on the mental health of police officers. This study tested the hypothesis that occupational stressors and PTSD are serial mediators of the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and burnout. Two hundred Portuguese police officers completed an online survey that assessed their fear of COVID-19, exposure to operational and organizational stressors, PTSD, and burnout. The results of the serial mediation analysis indicated that not only do occupational stressors act as mediators between fear of COVID-19 and burnout but also that PTSD is a mediator. The findings of this study underscore the need for interventions to reduce the negative impact of operational and organizational stressors on the mental health of police officers. Furthermore, this study highlights the power of police institutions for prevention and intervention with these professionals. By recognizing the specific stressors that contribute to the development of PTSD and burnout, our study provides a foundation for the development of direct interventions that can help to minimize the adverse effects of these stressors

Emotional labor, occupational identity and work engagement in Portuguese police officers

Based on emotional labor theory, we aim to study the relationships between the dimensions of emotional labor (requirements and strategies), work engagement, and occupational identity in Portuguese police officers. Therefore, we intend to explore the possible effects of emotional labor both on work engagement and occupational identity, as well as ways of preventing and/or mitigating the impact of these relationships. We identified a gap in the studies on this subject in Portugal, particularly in the context of police professionals. Thus, a sample of 924 Portuguese police officers of the Public Security Police (PSP) was asked to answer a set of questionnaires: the Emotional Labour Scale, the Emotion Work Requirements Scale, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, and the Social Identity Scale. The data obtained was analyzed using correlation and multiple linear regression. Overall, the results revealed relationships between the emotional demands (i.e., suppression of negative emotions and expression of positive emotions) and strategies (i.e., deep and surface acting) of emotional labor and work engagement as well as occupational identity. We discuss these results and propose directions for future research, given the richness of the subject.

ISPO: A Serious Game to train the Interview Skills of Police Officers

The Interview Simulation for Police Officers (ISPO) is a serious game developed to train police officers in communication competencies related to the interview of victims, witnesses and suspects. It was developed by Gameware Europe in collaboration with the Portuguese Police (Policia Judiciaria) within the RAGE project. The ISPO serious game was created using the modern methodologies and practices that are used in real-life police interviews. The focus of the game is on the training of communication competencies regarding gathering information from both victims and offenders.&#x0D; In order to evaluate the training effectiveness of the game, we conducted a study with 194 participants where general subjective learning effectiveness, using the Perceived Competence subscale of the IMI questionnaire, and domain-specific subjective learning effectiveness using the Police Interview Competency Inventory (PICI) were measured. Overall, ISPO improved the self-perceived competence of its players. Additionally, participants changed their opinion about the attitude to conduct a successful interview. Participants’ level of importance attributed to being dominant diminished and the level of importance attributed to being more benevolent and communicative during police interviews increased. Effects were stronger in inexperienced users leading us to believe that the game is an added value for use in a police officer school.

Emotional labour demands and work engagement in Portuguese police officers

ABSTRACT Grounded in the Emotional Labour Theory, we aim to study the relationship between emotional demands (the expression of positive emotions and suppression of negative emotions) and work engagement in a sample of Portuguese police officers. We intend to explore the possible effects of these emotional demands on work engagement and ways of preventing and/or mitigating its impact. When analysing the studies conducted in the Portuguese police context, we found a gap regarding emotions and/or emotional regulation. Accordingly, a sample of 924 Portuguese police officers from the Public Security Police (PSP) answered the Emotion Work Requirements Scale and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale voluntarily. Through correlation and multiple linear regression, we found a relationship between these emotional demands toward different interpersonal interactions and work engagement. We discuss these results, providing suggestions for field intervention and clues for future research.

The Impact of Burnout on Police Officers’ Performance and Turnover Intention: The Moderating Role of Compassion Satisfaction

Burnout should be seen as an important phenomenon influencing the services provided by police forces, due to its high exposure to stressful events. The study sought to examine the impact of burnout on performance and turnover intention of Portuguese police forces, as well as to analyze the moderating effect of compassion satisfaction (CS) on this relationship. Data were collected in 2021 from 1.682 Portuguese police officers, using individual surveys. The results showed that (1) burnout is negatively related to performance; (2) burnout is positively related to turnover intention; (3) CS, although it has a positive effect on performance, does not assume a moderating role, as expected, in the relationship between burnout and performance; (4) CS assumes a moderating role in the relationship between burnout and turnover intention. That is, when a person who still suffers from burnout feels CS, it decreases the intention to leave the organization. The implications and the bearings of this study are discussed and presented regarding the theoretical, empirical and practical perspectives in order to better support both the comprehension of burnout in police officers and offer the best practical recommendations.

Attitudes of Police Recruits Towards Offenders: the Impact of the Police Training on Attitudinal Change

The traditional prevailing perspectives on attitudes assume that attitudes, once formed, are relatively stable over time. However, research has revealed that attitudes may be influenced by different factors that may change them. The present pre-post-test study aims to understand if the police recruits’ attitudes towards offenders change after police training and analyse the impact of sociodemographic and personality variables on recruits’ attitudes towards offenders. The Attitude Scale towards Offenders (ATO) and the NEO-FFI Personality Inventory were used in a sample of 74 recruits of a Portuguese Police Force at the beginning and the end of the police training program. Results revealed that, at the end of the training, recruits hold more negative attitudes towards offenders. Those who had previous professional experience in the army hold more positive attitudes, but only at the beginning of the training. Only attitudes towards offenders at the beginning of the police training program predict recruits’ attitudes towards offenders at the end of the training. These results emphasize the importance of initial and continuous training of recruits and police officers.

Exploring Perceptions of Portuguese Police about Human Trafficking Victims and Perpetrators

Exploring Perceptions of Portuguese Police about Human Trafficking Victims and Perpetrators

Hitler's Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal by Marion Kaplan

Reviewed by: Hitler's Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal by Marion Kaplan Norman J. W. Goda Marion Kaplan . Hitler's Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal . New Haven, CT : Yale University Press , 2020 . 356 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009420000628 Marion Kaplan's study of Jewish refugees in neutral Portugal during the Holocaust is most welcome in terms of both content and method. Studies of refugees generally focus on governmental policy with a sprinkling of lived refugee experience based on poignant moments. Drawing on an array of sources from personal letters to memoirs to Jewish organizational records over the refugees' longue durée in Lisbon and other Portuguese locales, Kaplan provides an everyday history that is darkly colored by the brittle emotions and anxieties of the refugees themselves as they navigated their unsettled status over months and even years in constricted spatial environments. The book informs our understanding of Europe's Jews, even the comparatively lucky ones, on the edge of Hitler's Europe. Along with Arthur Koestler, Hannah Arendt, Lion Feuchtwanger, and other well-known cases, tens of thousands of ordinary European Jews, mostly from [End Page 203] central Europe, fled to Portugal as a singular safe haven. More than 70,000 reached Portugal in the chaos of Germany's 1940 western offensive, 10,000 more as the Vichy government began rounding up foreign Jews for deportation in 1942. The feeling that they were a step ahead of German forces as they moved through the Low Countries and France; confusion over the blizzard of exit, transit, and residence visas that one needed to flee through Spain; despondency over the queues to attain these papers from mercurial bureaucrats in French cities overrun by refugees; anxiety over the quality of forged papers or the lack of certain papers entirely; the ever-changing attitudes of Spanish and Portuguese border officials; the prospect of dangerous treks over the Pyrenees; and the crushing fear of being sent back, represented danger from all sides. Despondency famously drove Walter Benjamin to suicide at the Spanish border. But the confluence of fears, Kaplan shows, was one that many refugees never shook off, particularly as for most, Portugal turned out to be a longer stopover than expected. Lisbon, once reached, represented improvement, but not assurance. Ordinary Portuguese were generous despite their poverty. Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, meanwhile, never embraced the antisemitism of other European autocrats, a tendency buttressed by his friend Moses Amzalek, a respected academic and Portuguese Jewish leader. But Salazar's acceptance of Jewish refugees was grudging, as seen by the punishment of Portuguese consuls in France who had issued visas contrary to orders. Refugees represented a drain on the economy, they supposedly entertained cosmopolitan tendencies, and the unwillingness of the United States and other countries to take them extended their stay in Portugal despite the efforts of the Jewish, Quaker, and Unitarian relief organizations to support them and put them en route to permanent status elsewhere. Portugal's police authorities, more enamored of the Nazis, were unsympathetic, and the German colony in Portugal was predictably hostile. Living in crowded quarters ("Lisbon is sold out" was an oft-repeated line), unable to work by government order and chronically short on food, worried about loved ones in occupied Europe, and nervous that the Wehrmacht would at some point approach the Portuguese border, refugees were generally on edge. But the greatest immediate worry concerned expiring visas (or the discovery of fake ones) and consequent return to Germany. The October 1941 abduction and handover of German Jewish journalist Berthold Jacob in a Gestapo-inspired police operation, Kaplan says, "reverberated in the refugee rumor mill" (122), and even though the act was not repeated, the Portuguese police raided cafés from time to time, jailing those without papers. More common was police assignment to forced residence in remote towns in order to relieve crowding in Lisbon. The beauty of some places, like Caldas, was offset by their restrictiveness and long train journey back to Lisbon—undertaken only with police permission—where the essential consular, relief, and shipping offices were located. As in her past work, Kaplan is at her best when discussing the individual microhistories...

Burnout and Stress Measurement in Police Officers: Literature Review and a Study With the Operational Police Stress Questionnaire.

Research has demonstrated that policing is a stressful occupation and that this stress has a negative impact on police officers’ mental and physical health, performance, and interactions with citizens. Mental health at the workplace has become a concern due to the costs of depression, anxiety, burnout, and even suicide, which is high among police officers. To ameliorate occupational health, it is therefore crucial to identify stress and burnout levels on a regular basis. However, the instruments frequently used to measure stress have not valorized the specificity of policing tasks. This study aims to: (i) conduct a literature review to identify questionnaires used to assess occupational stress and burnout among police officers; (ii) analyze the psychometric characteristics of a Portuguese version of Operational Police Stress Questionnaire (PSQ-Op); and, using the PSQ-Op and other questionnaires, (iii) to identify operational stress, burnout, and distress levels among Portuguese police officers. The literature review identified 108 studies which use a multiplicity of questionnaires to measure burnout or occupational stress among police officers, but few studies use specific police stress questionnaires. Sample sizes were mostly below 500 participants and studies were mainly developed in the last decade in the USA and Brazil, but also in another 24 countries, showing the extent of the interest in this topic. This study applied to 2057 police officers from the National Portuguese Police, a force policing urban centers, and used the PSQ-Op, as well the Spanish Burnout Inventory and the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale. The results show that the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of PSQ-Op are adequate. Factorial analysis revealed two dimensions defined as social and work issues, which were associated with measures of distress and burnout. Fit indices suggested a second-order solution called operational police stress. Overall, and considering the scale range of each questionnaire, the results showed moderate values of operational stress, distress, and burnout. However, considering their cut-off points, 85% of the sample presented high operational stress levels, 11% critical values for burnout, and 28% high distress levels, with 55% of the sample at risk of a psychological disorder. These results reinforce the need to prevent stress and to invest in police officers’ occupational health.

Transitioning from recruit to officer: An investigation of how stress appraisal and coping influence work engagement

AbstractThis study investigated stress, coping, and work engagement among Portuguese police officers while undergoing academy training and then 1 year later, when on duty. It was hypothesized that stress appraisal and coping preferences predicted engagement. Additionally, in order to test a full cross‐lagged prediction model, it was hypothesized that stress, coping, and engagement in recruits predicted these variables later when working as police officers. Structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses. Results suggest that coping and stress appraisals do not seem to be strong predictors of work engagement among recruits and police officers on duty. With the exception of self‐blame, that seems to be a strong predictor of work engagement among police officers on duty. These results highlight the need to investigate other potential variables such as working conditions that may better explain work engagement. Considering the positive influence of engagement on health, wellbeing, and performance of police recruits and officers future applied and theoretical implications are discussed.