Unlocking deflection: The role of supervisor support in police officer willingness to refer people who inject drugs to harm reduction services

Abstract

Background: Research is needed that investigates the relationship between police behaviors, attitudes, and perceived supervisor support as an implementation strategy of improving drug policy reforms.

Methods: We hypothesized that officers with more positive attitudes and practices would be more likely to report the perceived support of their supervisors. Data includes a sample of 1227 police officers who completed Project ESCUDO, a police education training program in Tijuana, Mexico. A negative binomial distribution was used to estimate associations between police behaviors and attitudes and perceived supervisor support.

Results: Officers who reported perceived supervisor support accounted for 29.2% (n=470) of the sample. Officers who referred people to social services were more likely and officers who broke syringes were less likely to report perceived supervisor support compared to officers who did not engage in these practices. Officers who believed: MOUD reduced criminal activity, "referring people who use drugs to social services is part of my job", and "laws that treat addiction as a public health problem make my job easier", were more likely to report perceived supervisor support. Beliefs that drug addiction is a disease, laws that treat addiction as a public health problem make their job easier, and talking to other law enforcement officers about infectious diseases were not significantly associated with perceived supervisor support.

Conclusions: Our research highlights the importance of incorporating police supervisors as key actors in assuring officers' practices reflect current drug law reforms as well as embrace patient-centered approaches to managing encounters people who use opioids and inject drugs.

Keywords: Harm reduction; Overdose prevention; Police.