The Psychological Cost of Being Under Investigation

An allegation against a police officer may eventually be dismissed, result in no further action or lead to misconduct proceedings. Whatever the outcome, research by former police officer and social scientist Mark Brain suggests that the period spent waiting for that decision can itself have serious psychological consequences.

For a police officer, being placed under investigation can create uncertainty in almost every part of life at once. There may be questions about whether they will keep their job, what colleagues think of them, whether their reputation can recover and how their family will cope if the eventual outcome affects their income or career.

Unlike many stressful events, there may also be no clear end date.

This experience featured prominently in the doctoral research of Mark Brain, who interviewed 86 serving and retired police officers about their lives, careers and mental health. Internal Professional Standards investigations emerged as one of the four dominant organisational themes within participants' accounts. Mark concluded that protracted investigations could threaten mental health and undermine the sense of security participants had previously associated with their careers.

The significance of uncertainty is easy to underestimate. An officer might know that an investigation is taking place but have little influence over its speed or outcome. They may spend months analysing what happened, worrying about evidence they have not seen and imagining consequences that may never materialise. Normal plans involving promotion, finances, retirement or family life can suddenly become much harder to make.

At the same time, their relationship with policing can change. An officer who previously felt secure within a team may begin to feel that they are now viewed differently. If their duties change or they become disconnected from colleagues, part of the support network built during their career can also disappear at precisely the point they may need it most.

Mark's research uses the concept of "ontological security" to help explain why this can become so psychologically significant. In simpler terms, people need some stability in their understanding of who they are, where they belong and what their future is likely to look like. Policing can provide much of that security through income, identity, friendships, routine and purpose. An investigation capable of placing several of those things in doubt simultaneously can therefore affect considerably more than somebody's working day.

When uncertainty becomes a welfare risk

The most concerning finding in Mark's research was the association between internal investigation and suicidal thinking. His thesis reports that being investigated carried a high risk of suicidal ideation among the affected participants, which led him to recommend that officers should undergo a risk assessment before entering an investigation process and have an appropriate welfare plan put in place.

This finding needs to be interpreted carefully. The research does not establish that being investigated will cause an officer to become suicidal, and it certainly does not mean that investigations should be avoided whenever somebody is experiencing poor mental health. Allegations against police officers have to be investigated fairly and thoroughly, particularly when serious misconduct may have occurred.

The important point is that investigation and welfare do not have to be treated as opposing objectives.

It should be possible to investigate an allegation without presuming guilt, to maintain appropriate professional boundaries without unnecessarily isolating somebody, and to monitor an officer's welfare without interfering with the independence or outcome of the investigation.

The psychological risk also exists regardless of whether the allegation is eventually proven. An officer cleared after a lengthy investigation does not retrospectively recover the months spent believing they might lose their career. Equally, an officer who has committed misconduct does not cease to be a person whose mental health may deteriorate during the process.

Mark's study was principally based on one anonymised case-study force, so it cannot tell us how frequently these experiences occur throughout policing. What it does provide is detailed evidence that, among some of the officers he interviewed, the investigation itself became a significant source of psychological distress.

That should encourage policing to think differently about welfare during misconduct proceedings. Rather than waiting until an officer is visibly struggling, welfare considerations could begin when the investigation begins, continue throughout periods of delay and uncertainty, and recognise changes in behaviour or mental health before somebody reaches crisis.

Accountability is essential to maintaining trust in policing, but psychological harm should never be regarded as an inevitable part of achieving it. A fair misconduct system should be capable of establishing what happened and holding people responsible where necessary, while recognising that the person waiting for that decision may be experiencing one of the most uncertain periods of their life.