{"title":"A qualitative study of police officers' knowledge of the relationship between police opioid seizures and subsequent risk of overdose.","authors":"Brandon Del Pozo, Erin Thompson, Alina Whiteside","doi":"10.1186/s40352-025-00368-y","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>People who use opioids (PWUO) have asserted police opioid seizures increase risk of overdose in their proximate aftermath. Ecological studies and causal models exhibit a positive association between police opioid seizures and overdose risk. To further characterize this relationship, this qualitative study explores how police officers who conduct drug enforcement understand the relationship between their opioid seizures and overdose risk. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with officers from the Providence, Rhode Island (USA) Police Department (n = 26) who patrolled areas with highly concentrated public substance use, or who conducted narcotics investigations. Interviews explored beliefs about the effects of police opioid seizures on overdose risk, reasons why seizures may modify this risk, and the motivations for narcotics enforcement. In contrast to patrol officers, narcotics investigators and patrol supervisors with narcotics investigation experience expressed four themes: (1) police opioid seizures increase subsequent overdose risk; (2) the reasons why closely track accounts put forth by researchers, and PWUO who experience this risk firsthand; (3) this risk was one of many faced by PWUO, and (4) police narcotics work should weigh it against the perceived need to address the effects of the illicit narcotics trade on a community. This consensus across diverse study populations, supported by ecological research and causal models, suggests the overdose risks generated by police opioid enforcement should be taken seriously in formulating drug policy.</p>","PeriodicalId":37843,"journal":{"name":"Health and Justice","volume":"13 1","pages":"59"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12487143/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Health and Justice","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40352-025-00368-y","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
People who use opioids (PWUO) have asserted police opioid seizures increase risk of overdose in their proximate aftermath. Ecological studies and causal models exhibit a positive association between police opioid seizures and overdose risk. To further characterize this relationship, this qualitative study explores how police officers who conduct drug enforcement understand the relationship between their opioid seizures and overdose risk. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with officers from the Providence, Rhode Island (USA) Police Department (n = 26) who patrolled areas with highly concentrated public substance use, or who conducted narcotics investigations. Interviews explored beliefs about the effects of police opioid seizures on overdose risk, reasons why seizures may modify this risk, and the motivations for narcotics enforcement. In contrast to patrol officers, narcotics investigators and patrol supervisors with narcotics investigation experience expressed four themes: (1) police opioid seizures increase subsequent overdose risk; (2) the reasons why closely track accounts put forth by researchers, and PWUO who experience this risk firsthand; (3) this risk was one of many faced by PWUO, and (4) police narcotics work should weigh it against the perceived need to address the effects of the illicit narcotics trade on a community. This consensus across diverse study populations, supported by ecological research and causal models, suggests the overdose risks generated by police opioid enforcement should be taken seriously in formulating drug policy.
期刊介绍：
Health & Justice is open to submissions from public health, criminology and criminal justice, medical science, psychology and clinical sciences, sociology, neuroscience, biology, anthropology and the social sciences, and covers a broad array of research types. It publishes original research, research notes (promising issues that are smaller in scope), commentaries, and translational notes (possible ways of introducing innovations in the justice system). Health & Justice aims to: Present original experimental research on the area of health and well-being of people involved in the adult or juvenile justice system, including people who work in the system; Present meta-analysis or systematic reviews in the area of health and justice for those involved in the justice system; Provide an arena to present new and upcoming scientific issues; Present translational science—the movement of scientific findings into practice including programs, procedures, or strategies; Present implementation science findings to advance the uptake and use of evidence-based practices; and, Present protocols and clinical practice guidelines. As an open access journal, Health & Justice aims for a broad reach, including researchers across many disciplines as well as justice practitioners (e.g. judges, prosecutors, defenders, probation officers, treatment providers, mental health and medical personnel working with justice-involved individuals, etc.). The sections of the journal devoted to translational and implementation sciences are primarily geared to practitioners and justice actors with special attention to the techniques used.
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