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Pandemic challenges and opportunities in policing
As any other unexpected crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought both challenges and new opportunities to the States and their Law Enforcement institutions. The establishment of the quarantine in Lithuania caused a stressed restricted environment in which the Police was forced to reshape its activities and adapt them to the new situation.
The innovativeness, progressive decisions and important insights of the Lithuanian Police leaders that had been demonstrated prior to pandemic may have helped to cope with the difficult situation, as some steps had been taken before the quarantine - promoting remote work, providing appropriate equipment to the employees, acquiring technology for remote communication, etc. This allowed the police to reorient their work in extreme conditions much quicker and to ensure proper coordination of all activities.
All measures taken urgently were appropriate and timely – setting and communication of clear principles on limiting contacts, reorientation of activities, at the same time defining the actions that need to be taken in order not to affect the key police activities. The positive result of all measures – only a small number of police officers were infected, and it did not happen in the working environment.
During this pandemic period, the Lithuanian police has already drawn particular conclusions based on the initial analyzes of the actions taken, the lessons learned and the aspects that can be amended.
The IT side should be strengthened to avoid, as far as possible, frequent communication problems or system failures during the pandemic.
During the quarantine period, we saw very well that we could do a lot of work remotely. Not only the Police, but also other institutions, including the courts, realized that some meetings and interviews could be organised at a distance (it was also possible before, but there was no desire to do so). International meetings and conferences could be mentioned here too.
What police actions have paid off?
• Prioritization of activities.
• Constant communication both with the police community and with the public.
• Performing procedural actions remotely.
• Searching for alternative actions, quick decision-making.