Table 1 Survey items relevant to police chief knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs on addiction and policing
Items | ||
|---|---|---|
Demographic items | Unit | |
1. How many years have you served in policing? | Years | |
2. How many years have you served as an agency head? | Years | |
3. Approximately how many full-time sworn officers do you lead? | Number of officers | |
Substantive items | Likert scale anchorsc | |
1. My police officers know how to effectively respond to opioid overdoses. | Strongly disagree/ Strongly agree | |
2. My police officers know how to effectively respond to methamphetamine overdoses. | Strongly disagree/ Strongly agree | |
3. If there was a way to de-escalate people high on methamphetamines and get them to medical treatment, I’d implement it. b | Strongly disagree/ Strongly agree | |
4. Police should be cautious in responding to drug overdose scenes because fentanyl may be present, and it can harm them. b | Strongly disagree/ Strongly agree | |
5. Do the police officers in your agency carry Narcan (naloxone) on patrol? | Yes/ No | |
Health-related frame | Safety-related frame | |
6. Whether police officers in my agency arrest a person for any nonviolent misdemeanor is: | Whether police officers in my agency arrest a drug user for any nonviolent misdemeanor is: | Not at their discretion at all/ Entirely at their discretion |
7. I trust my officers to make the right decision about whether to arrest a person for a nonviolent misdemeanor. | I trust my officers to make the right decision about whether to arrest a drug user for a nonviolent misdemeanor. | Strongly disagree/ Strongly agree |
8. People illegally use buprenorphine (Suboxone) to manage their opioid addiction on their own. b | People illegally use buprenorphine (Suboxone) to get high with a less dangerous drug than heroin or fentanyl. b | Strongly disagree/ Strongly agree |
9. Please rank the following substances from 1 to 6 in terms of their relative harms to the community you serve: a | Please rank the following substances from 1 to 6 in terms of their relative threat to the safety of the community you serve: a | Most harmful/ Least harmful |