New Challenges for Police During the Pandemic and Specific Actions to Counteract them in Romania

Abstract

Measures designed to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV2 included a series of actions that contributed to the amplification of social tensions (traffic restrictions, limitation of income sources, adjacent economic shortages, return to the country of a large number of Romanian citizens, and the amount of fines for violating the restrictions provided by the military ordinances), some of which affected the activity of the police. Therefore, police had to face new threats and to ensure the respect of a wide range of limitations in regard to people’s conduct and public order. This article will analyse the specific challenges faced by the police in the period following the spread of Covid-19, mainly during the lockdown installed in Romania, challenges directly related to the measures adopted, the changes in the daily routine and the necessary actions to limit and eliminate the pandemic’s negative effects. More specific, the article analyses the group conflicts that have risen during lockdown and aggressive conduct towards Police determined by the enforcement of rules meant to limit the pandemic in different areas of the country. The paper pays a large amount of attention to the ways in which the Romanian Police approached these cases, their implication and elaborates a set of necessary measures Police needs to implement in order to properly manage them.