American Law Enforcement Responses to COVID-19

  Matthew B. Kugler, Mariana Oliver, Jonathan Chu, Nathan, R. Lee   

  What role did law enforcement play in promoting COVID-19 restrictions in the United States during the spring and summer of 2020? Because most law enforcement in the U.S. occurs at the local level, we surveyed local police departments to examine their responses to the COVID19 pandemic. Our results show that most departments, especially those in smaller jurisdictions, played a minimal role in enforcing COVID-related restrictions and tended only to encourage compliance. Further, it was extremely rare for a department to use sophisticated surveillance technology to monitor COVID compliance. This lack of monitoring stands both in stark contrast to the regimes employed by several comparable industrialized countries and in spite of the broad surveillance powers permissible under the U.S. Constitution.

111 J. Crim. L. & Criminology Online 19 (2021).