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Indoor interventions are among the most dangerous situations police officers have to deal with, mostly due to a lack of situational awareness. This work describes a planner that determines when to provide information, implemented in DLV^K. It is based on the General Tactical Explanation Model, used by Swedish police during tactical interventions. The planner is envisioned to be integrated in an augmented reality tool to enhance officers’ situational awareness.

Sexual and gender-based harassment is a work environment concern, especially in hierarchical and male-dominant organisations such as the police. This scoping review aims to examine the existing literature on such harassment against police employees in Europe to identify the available knowledge and highlight the gaps for future studies. Following the Arksey and O’Malley framework, 16 relevant articles were analysed. Most of the studies were focused on sexual harassment, and gender-based harassment was mostly absent or mixed with other discriminations. The analysis resulted in six main themes: existence of sexual and gender-based harassment; perpetrators; associated factors; consequences; individual response; and impact of organisational policies. The findings demonstrate that such harassment remains prevalent among police employees, emphasising the need for continuous and rigorous supervision, evaluation, and comprehensive revision of policies by police authorities. This study recommends further research to address the identified gaps in this field.

In extreme situations, the police have limited time to react when a threat or a situation arises suddenly. Situation awareness has been identified as a key factor for success in how tactical decisions are made. This helps the police to perform secure and legally correct interventions and decisions. We collected the primary data from 21 interviews with police officers, supplemented by literature and documents. We analyzed the relationship between tactical methods and situation awareness. The purpose of the article is to explore the relationship between police tactics and police officers’ work with situation awareness. Situation awareness has been studied through the lens of the Swedish police general tactical explanation model. We discuss how the general tactical explanation model provides the conditions for the police officers’ explanations to achieve situation awareness. We conclude that if the general tactical explanation model is applied during tactical interventions there are better possibilities to achieve situation awareness.

Syftet med denna artikel är att utforska hur centrala svenska aktörer upplever och hanterar arbetet med åldersbedömningar av asylsökande barn i Sverige. Vidare syftar artikeln till att diskutera hur dessa aktörer använder sitt handlingsutrymme till att balansera mellan den rättsliga regleringen å den ena sidan och barnets rättigheter och behov å den andra. I artikeln används Lipskys teori om gräsrotsbyråkrater. Undersökningen baseras på kvalitativa semi-strukturerade intervjuer med tjänstepersoner vid Migrationsverket och rättsläkare. Av resultaten dras slutsatsen att tjänstepersonerna vid Migrationsverket har ett stort handlingsutrymme vid åldersbedömning av asylsökande barn, men att de i hög grad använder detta till att överlämna beslutet om ålder till rättsläkarna. Vidare dras slutsatsen att rättsläkarna har ett mer begränsat handlingsutrymme, eftersom det är utlåtanden från tandläkare och röntgenläkare som egentligen avgör vilken åldersbedömning som görs.

Introduction: Police officers work in a variable environment under different circumstances and often involves stressful situations. This include working irregular hours, ongoing exposure to critical incidents, confrontations and violence. community police officers are mainly out in the society and have daily contact with the general public. critical incidents can also consist of being criticized and stigmatized as a police officer, both from the public but also lack of support from their own organization. There is evidence on negative impacts of stress on police officers. However, knowledge about the nature of police stress and its various types is insufficient. It is assumed that there are common stress factors which are universal among all police officers in different contexts but there is a lack of comparative studies to provide empirical evidence. The aim of this study is to compare different types of stress among police officers in Norway and Sweden and how the pattern of experiencing stress has changed over time in these countries.

Methods: The study population consisted of patrolling police officers from 20 local police districts or units in all seven regions in Sweden (n = 953) and patrolling police officers from four police districts in Norway (n = 678). A 42-item Police Stress Identification Questionnaire was used to measure the stress level.

Results: The findings show differences in types of stressful events as well as its severity among police officers in Sweden and Norway. The level of stress decreased over time among Swedish police officers whereas it showed no change or even an increase among the Norwegian participants.

Discussion: The results of this study are relevant for policy-makers, police authorities and lay police officers in each country to tailor their efforts to prevent stress among police officers.

An active shooter event is one of the most complicated situations a police officer could face. Today the standard procedure for an active shooter event is to enter the scene and try to prevent casualties. This involves taking great risks and puts the police officers in a situation they have not been trained for. This is a work in progress paper where the long-term goal is to develop modern technology that could increase the chance of saving lives and decrease the risk of being injured or killed during an active shooter event. Six active shooter event exercises taking place in Sweden have been studied using an ethnographic field study approach. Four themes have been identified where we argue that technology could enhance the police mission: A) Situational awareness; B) Decision making/prioritization; C) Localization of both sound and people; D) Decreasing time of intervention.

Asylum-seeking minors are viewed as particularly vulnerable but are still exposed to coercive measures permitted by law. This study analyses Swedish Police Authority and Swedish Migration Agency officials’ perceptions of coercive measures towards minors in the asylum process in light of the Swedish law, and raises minors’ own voices on their experiences of coercive measures. Qualitative interviews were performed with 1) officials at the Swedish Police Authority and Swedish Migration Agency who manage and use coercive actions against minors and 2) former minors with experiences of being subjected to coercive measures. Based on a thematic analysis, the results illustrate how the officials’ perceptions about coercive measures are characterized by uncertainty and ambivalence. The minors expressed the importance of how they were treated during the asylum process rather than the coercive measure as such. Swedish law regulating coercive measures needs clarifications to give sufficient guidance for practice.

Police work is stressful. A protective function against work stress and harm to mental health is social support, either within or outside work. This cross-sectional study analyzes the associations of quantitative (availability) and qualitative (adequacy) aspects of social support with general mental health among Swedish police officers. A total of 728 officers responded to a national survey. Bivariate analyses (t-test and chi square) identified continuous and categorical variables (respectively) statistically significantly associated with sex and social support. Pearson correlation coefficient was provided to indicate the associations between general mental health and different types of social support. Sex-stratified logistic regression modeling calculated crude and adjusted odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) and assessed the relationships between different types of social support, sociodemographic variables and general mental health. The findings show that low adequacy of attachment is associated with poorer mental health among female officers, although female officers also reported higher availability of both social interaction and attachment compared to male officers. We found an association between low work-related social support and poorer mental health among single male police officers. Moreover, police officers who worked shifts, were younger, had less work experience, and/or had no children reported higher availability of attachment, whereas older police officers reported higher adequacy of social interaction compared to younger police officers. Variation in the quantity and quality of close social relationships seems to be important to mental health. Police organizations need to be aware of this in their efforts to make the work environment more supportive. Social support might create an environment where officers feel more comfortable discussing their mental health concerns and seeking assistance.