Data Insight: Were people with health vulnerabilities more likely to be fined by the police during the Covid-19 pandemic?

This Data Insight explores whether people who had accessed health services for conditions relating to mental ill health, drug use and alcohol misuse were more likely to receive fixed penalty notices (FPNs) during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Background

Thousands of police fines were issued during the Covid-19 pandemic for failure to comply with UK public health regulations. Known as ‘fixed penalty notices’ (FPNs), these on-the-spot fines were intended to be issued only as a last resort to individuals who deliberately broke the rules around staying at home, avoiding unnecessary travel or socially distancing from others.

However, health studies have shown that people with health vulnerabilities such as mental ill health, drug addiction and alcohol dependency found it more difficult to abide by the rules than others. This was due to a number of reasons, including a worsening of their health conditions, lack of access to necessary services, and an inability to get support from friends or family.

To date, no studies have examined whether people with health vulnerabilities were more likely than others to receive police FPNs during the pandemic. This is the first study to address this knowledge gap by linking police and health data.

Full findings from this study are published in the Journal of Criminology.

What we found

Almost one in five (19%) people who received a Covid-19 FPN had accessed health services for at least one type of mental health, drug-related or alcohol-related condition during the study period. This compared with less than one in twenty (4%) of the matched group, which means that people who were fined for breaching public health regulations were around five times more likely to have accessed services for some kind of health vulnerability in the year before, or during, the pandemic.

Breaking this down by condition type, Figure 1 shows that between 10-12% of people in the FPN group had sought support for a drug-related, alcohol-related or mental health-related condition, compared to just 2% of the people in the matched group.  Overall, people in the FPN group were around four times more likely to have received support for a mental health condition, and seven times more likely to have accessed services for a drug or alcohol-related condition, than the matched group.

We also found that FPN recipients were six times more likely to have accessed services for two types of health condition, and nine times more likely to have sought support for all three conditions, than the matched group. In other words, those who were fined were not only more likely to have at least one kind of health vulnerability, but were far more likely to have multiple health vulnerabilities, than those who were not.  

Among those who had accessed health services, FPN recipients were almost twice as likely to be long-term health service users (which means they had accessed services both before and during the pandemic) than the matched group.  There was also a strong relationship between long-term service use and having multiple health vulnerabilities, especially among those who were fined by the police during the pandemic.

The percentage of FPN recipients who had accessed services relating to a health vulnerability reduced over time. Around 40% of people fined during the first lockdown (from March to June 2020) had accessed services for a health vulnerability, compared to only 15% during the second lockdown (from January to May 2021). This is most likely explained by an increase in non-compliance among the general population, including young people and people from more affluent social groups, who were less likely to have health vulnerabilities. There was little or no change between lockdown one and two in the health profile of people in the matched group.

Regardless of people’s health vulnerabilities, we found that social isolation or loneliness and lack of access to private outdoor space may have increased some people’s likelihood of being fined under the Covid-19 regulations, especially during the first lockdown.

Why it matters

Many countries introduced public health regulations to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic and gave police new powers to help reduce the spread of the disease and prevent deaths. This means that many people came into contact with the police for doing things that, under normal circumstances, would have been perfectly law-abiding.  It is important to determine whether certain people in the population were more likely to be subject to these powers so that we can assess whether there was any inequality of outcome. This is the first study in the world to explore whether people with health vulnerabilities were more likely than others to be impacted by the public health regulations and associated policing powers during Covid-19.

Over-representation of people with health vulnerabilities among those who were fined demonstrates that more should have been done to support these individuals during the pandemic. The increased risk for people with long-term chronic health conditions, especially those with comorbidities, suggests that lack of access to services and amenities may have impacted significantly the ability or willingness of some vulnerable people to comply with the regulations. 

This study highlights a previously unidentified ‘justice inequality’ in the impact of the public health regulations. It suggests that health vulnerabilities should be given far greater consideration when planning for any future pandemics.