Impact of a Police-led Substance Misuse Deflection Program Intervention on Perceptions of Police

In the last decade, policing has advanced and expanded the implementation of prearrest deflection programs that focus on targeted response to reduce substance misuse and prevent drug overdose. Under deflection intervention programs, police officers utilize their typical daily interactions with community members to identify people who have substance misuse issues and provide a brief intervention to encourage and facilitate engagement in substance abuse treatment, while minimizing involvement in the justice system. Positive community-police relations are critical for police-led deflection programs whose effectiveness is reliant on community member cooperation and engagement to address public health and safety issues. By implementing these programs, police can not only reduce substance misuse and prevent drug overdose, but also leverage deflection-related encounters with community members who use drugs to improve community perceptions of police. The present study examined whether deflection encounters with people who use drugs resulted in more positive perceptions of police than encounters with people who use drugs that resulted in arrest and whether this effect varied by gender. Study findings indicate that, overall, females had more negative perceptions of police involved in the incident compared to males. Furthermore, overall, participants who had been deflected had more positive perceptions of the police involved in the incident than those who had been arrested. However, deflection had the most positive impact on perceived police support of people with substance use and mental health issues and lesser positive impacts on perceived bias of and general attitudes towards the police involved in the incident. These findings indicate that alternative-to-arrest deflection programs improve perceptions of police among people who use drugs, revealing a positive impact of deflection programs beyond supporting people who use drugs in engaging in treatment and pursuing recovery. Study findings also indicate a need for gender responsive deflection programming and training in order to facilitate gender equitable benefit of deflection programs.