“It Has Totally Changed How I Think About the Police”: COVID-19 and the Mis/Trust of Pandemic Policing in Aotearoa New Zealand

• Published date: 01 June 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/07340168231193023
• Author: Antje Deckert,Nicholas J. Long,Pounamu Jade Aikman,Nayantara Sheoran Appleton,Sharyn Graham Davies,Edmond Fehoko,Eleanor Holroyd,Naseem Jivraj,Megan Laws,Nelly Martin-Anatias,Michael Roguski,Nikita Simpson,Rogena Sterling,Laumua Tunufa'i
• Date: 01 June 2024

“It Has Totally Changed How I

Think About the Police”:

COVID-19 and the Mis/Trust of

Pandemic Policingin Aotearoa

New Zealand

Antje Deckert

1

, Nicholas J. Long

2

,

Pounamu Jade Aikman

3

,

Nayantara Sheoran Appleton

4

,

Sharyn Graham Davies

1

, Edmond Fehoko

1

,

Eleanor Holroyd

5

, Naseem Jivraj

2

, Megan Laws

2

,

Nelly Martin-Anatias

1

, Michael Roguski

6

,

Nikita Simpson

2

, Rogena Sterling

7

,

and Laumua Tunufa’i

1

Abstract

In the initial phase of COVID-19, Aotearoa New Zealand was internationally praised for its pan-

demic response that included lockdowns to control the spread and work toward elimination.

Community compliance with control measures was thus essential when pursuing elimination as a

policy. Using a mixed-methods approach, we sought to explore whether New Zealand Police

(NZP) were trusted to police the lockdown rules at Levels 4 and 3. We analyzed 1,020 survey

responses comparing trust among respondents who hadbeen stopped by NZP over the lockdown

rules (contacts) with those who had not (non-contacts). We found that both contacts and non-con-

tacts expressed greater trust in NZP to enforce the Level 4 than the Level 3 rules; contacts

expressed less trust in NZP to enforce the lockdown rules than non-contacts; contacts perceived

NZP more heavy-handed than non-contacts; contacts perceived NZP as only somewhat

1

School of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

2

Anthropology, London School of Economics, London, UK

3

Independent Scholar, Wellington, New Zealand

4

School of Science in Society, Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

5

School of Clinical Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

6

Kaitiaki Research and Evaluation, Wellington, New Zealand

7

School of Law, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

Corresponding Author:

Antje Deckert, School of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, Aotearoa, New

Zealand.

Email: adeckert@aut.ac.nz

Article

Criminal Justice Review

2024, Vol. 49(2) 175-195

© 2023 Georgia State University

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/07340168231193023

journals.sagepub.com/home/cjr

procedurally just and feeling somewhat encouraged to comply with the lockdown rules and; that

unexpected high-prof‌ile policing-related events during the survey only affected contacts’trust sig-

nif‌icantly. We offer two explanations: (1) NZP were perceived as procedurally unjust or inconsis-

tent in applying the lockdown rules, (2) members of the public and NZP learned the lockdown rules

simultaneously. We caution that the unfamiliar character of pandemic policing may jeopardize trust

in NZP even among segments of the population that typically express high levels of trust in NZP,

that is, people of European descent. We conclude that community compliancewith pandemic con-

trol measures is no matter to be dealt with by the criminal legal system.

Keywords

coronavirus, criminal justice, procedural justice, mission creep, George Floyd effect

New Zealand Police as Public Health Educators During the 2020

COVID-19 Lockdown

Public health issues have long lingered on the periphery of policing and criminal justice studies (Punch &

James, 2017). Although the COVID-19 pandemic and related social control measures (such as nation-

wide lockdowns and travel restrictions) have propelled both public health education and intervention

measures into the spotlight of police work, much of the criminological research on the impact of

COVID-19 lockdown measures continues to be concerned with conventional criminal justice questions,

such as the effect of lockdown measures on crime rates (e.g., Ashby, 2020; Stickle & Felson, 2020), polic-

ing practices and culture (e.g., Alcadipani, 2020; White & Fradella, 2020), and the health and mental

health of police off‌icers (e.g., Rooney & McNicholas, 2020; Stogner et al., 2020). Meanwhile, the

public health sector has become increasingly aware of the role policing plays in addressing epidemiolog-

ical threats (Anderson & Burris, 2016; van Dijk & Crofts, 2017). Yet, that “does not mean […]thatpolice

work is ‘like’public health work, let alone that police and public health agencies share important features

in culture and methods”(Anderson & Burris, 2016, p. 300). This observation raises important questions

about the role of the police in public health policy. It implores us to ask whether (and if so why) members

of the public trust police around the world when they are asked to take on the dual role of public health

educators and lockdown enforcers in the context of unprecedented, large-scale intersectoral interventions

mandated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study focuses on Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), where safe-

guarding the integrity of public health measures through education, encouragement, and enforcement

(NZP, 2020a) became a new primary task for New Zealand Police (NZP) frontline off‌icers during the

f‌irst pandemic lockdown in March 2020. We examine whether NZP were trusted to police the lockdown

rules at Level 4 (lockdown) and Level 3 (heavy restrictions)

1

and whether being stopped by NZP over the

lockdown rules affected trust levels.

The goal of the COVID-19 public health strategy in NZ in 2020 was elimination. The strategy

encompassed six key interventions. These targeted border control, detection, surveillance, contact

tracing, quarantine, and community support of control measures (Ministry of Health, 2020a). The

Ministry of Health (2020a) described the latter as the “most important measure to restrict the

spread”of COVID-19. That community members practized “physical distancing, good hygiene,

staying home if sick and effective use of PPE when required […] [was] fundamental to the

overall response and a high level of compliance [was] needed.”

In NZ, governance and delivery of public health promotion and education have been primarily

attributed to 12 designated Public Health Units and a range of non-governmental organizations

(Ministry of Health, 2016a, 2020b). Until 2020, NZP have only played an ancillary role in the

176 Criminal Justice Review 49(2)