Community policing during the pandemic

Community-oriented policing (COP) is a policing philosophy that focuses on the co-production of public safety by police officers and the community members they serve. This paper utilized the extreme context presented by the COVID-19 pandemic to test the theoretical assumptions on which COP is based. The data presented in this paper were collected from 32 community police officers (CPOs) from a Canadian police service who attended six focus group sessions during the fourth wave of the pandemic (July to November 2021). We summarize key findings and insights from these focus groups and provide insights relating to the underlying mechanisms essential to the delivery of effective COP programs. Future studies should continue to examine COP in diverse contexts to understand its benefits and challenges more fully.