ABSTRACT
This chapter pursues a comparative approach to explore the homogeneity of police officers’ lived experiences during the pandemic. Utilizing the same instrument—distributed in nine countries as diverse as Brazil, Croatia, the Philippines, South Africa, the UK, and the United States—we analyze the comparative significance of various correlates of police officer stress. We argue that, regardless of the specific country, a police agency could make the lived experience more or less stressful for its employees. Our analyses reveal a substantial degree of homogeneity with which police officer concerns for the health of their family members and their emotional exhaustion correlate with perceived increases in stress. On the other hand, we find that some organizational stress alleviators, such as providing specific COVID-19 instructions and thus preparing police officers to deal with the pandemic, do not appear to serve as organizational stress alleviators in all countries.
