Particularities of occupational health and safety management in the police environment

Abstract

To other professions, in law enforcement, due to the diversity and complexity of police activity, policemen are daily exposed to various dangers resulting from the risky nature of their working environment. Thus, police work must be carried out in the most aggravating circumstances, often with limited staff and only having a few seconds to make critical decisions: whenever using the legal means, specific equipment, intercepting or immobilizing offenders, acting against various violations of the law, police officers are exposed to a very high number of occupational risks, compared to other civil professions. Despite the fact that public security environment risks are constantly evaluated by specialized workers and dedicated tools, compared to the policeman, this activity almost does not happen and it is mostly evasive taking into consideration that this area is within the competence of the high level manager and it is conducted by the human resources structures in the police units. Although this approach is totally wrong, these entities are the only ones in charge of controlling, mitigating or eliminating work related risks generated by police activity. This paper makes a brief assessment of the risks associated with the police operational work, taking into account the indicators taken and analyzed from the existing statistics of the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs, while offering new solutions in mitigating risks concerning the physical security of police workers.