THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLICE COMMUNICATION CHANNELS AND THE MODALITIES OF COPING WITH THE CRISIS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC.

Police organizations worldwide have introduced various organizational and operational changes to cope with the demands placed on them by the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic as effectively as possible. The intensification in the use of digital communication channels is one of those adaptations that enabled the functioning of the police at the organizational level, but simultaneously were a source of stress for police officers. In addition, this adaptation of police communication channels could be complex in rural and suburban parts of Croatia due to relatively high proportions of the elderly population and unequal availability of internet connections. This article aims to determine how the use of digital communication channels and in-person police communication during the COVID-19 pandemic affected how the police coped with this crisis on an organizational and personal level in suburban and rural communities. Quantitative research using a voluntary and anonymous survey method was conducted on a convenient sample of 367 police officers from two police administrations in Croatia covering predominantly suburban and rural areas. The results of the Jonckheere-Terpstra trend test and the non-parametric (Spearman) correlation test showed that police officers who estimated that they worked more on community policing activities and problem-solving in direct contact with citizens estimated that they better coped with the COVID-19 pandemic on a personal level, while police officers who estimated that they used digital communication channels more perceived that they better coped with the COVID-19 pandemic on an organizational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]