Page 64 - JSOM Summer 2025

An Ongoing Series

Injuries in Specialist Police Officers

A Scoping Review

Kate Lyons, DPT, B.ExSci *; Rodney Pope, PhD ; Ben Schram, PhD, DPT ;
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Karen Kelly, PhD, MSc ; Robin Orr, PhD, MSc (PT) 5
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ABSTRACT
Background: Within Law Enforcement Organizations, special- are placed in care, detained, or require assistance, including
ist police officers perform dangerous tasks beyond those of those who are uncooperative or aggressive. 1,3–8 Completing
general duties police officers. These tasks are often performed these duties may require LEOs to wrestle with and arrest an
in complex austere environments while officers wear or carry offender, run, jump, or vault over barriers/objects, traverse un-
heavy loads and place officers at a high risk of injury. The aims even terrain, and carry or pull heavy objects. These tasks are
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of this scoping review were to identify, collect, and synthe- typically performed with LEOs wearing occupational loads of
size the available evidence on injuries sustained by specialist around 10kg, 4,10,11 which are composed of items inclusive of an
police, and to compare these injuries with those of other law appointment/duty belt, load bearing vests, various anti-stab/
enforcement officers and wider Special Forces populations. ballistic body armor, handcuffs, batons, side arm, tasers, oleo-
Methods: Four academic databases were searched using key resin capsicum (OC) spray, and radios. 10,12–14
search terms. Duplicates of identified records were removed,
with those remaining screened against eligibility criteria. A With each shift for an LEO being unpredictable, and poten-
rearward and forward snowballing approach of citations was tially requiring physically demanding tasks to be undertaken
used to identify other relevant records. Key findings were then wearing loads and in austere circumstances, it is not surprising
summarized in table format. Results: From an initial 3,266 that these tasks elicit a risk of musculoskeletal injury (MSI)
identified records, 2 studies (1 cross-sectional, 1 retrospective that is higher than that in many other occupations. 1,2,15–17 It has
cohort) met the eligibility criteria. The most common injury been previously reported that LEO injury incidence can vary
sites varied between the studies and only one study reported from 240 to 2,500 per 1,000 personnel per annum 3,18,19 as com-
injury incidence, that being 1,347 per 1,000 person-years. pared to 0.88–1.57 per 1,000 employees per annum in major
Conclusion: Musculoskeletal injuries occur frequently in the industrial sectors (e.g., agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare,
specialist police population and may bear some similarities to construction). The upper extremity ‘other’ (site not speci-
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those among general duties police officers and Military Special fied), and torso/back have been previously reported to be the
Forces. However, there is a limited amount of evidence eluci- most common sites of injury, 18,21–24 and sprains/strains to be
dating the injury profile of this population. the most common nature of injury for LEOs. 1,3,21,23–26 In terms
of mechanisms of injury, non-compliant offenders/assault
Keywords: musculoskeletal injury; police tactical group; riot along with other unspecified causes and operational training
police; SWAT have been previously reported as being most common. 1,3,21–26

Within law enforcement organizations there are Special
Weapons and Tactics Units (SWAT ), Police Tactical Groups
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Introduction
(PTGs ), Specialist Policing Units (SPUs ), or Tactical Oper-
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Law enforcement officers (LEO) are required to complete var- ations Units (TOUs ), which often have higher occupational
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ied and physically demanding job tasks as part of their occupa- demands and fitness requirements than GD LEOs and less
tions. The job tasks performed by general duties (GD) LEOs predictability from shift to shift. 5,31,32 Police agencies report
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have been well documented and include, but are not limited specialist policing roles involve responding to demonstrations/
to, enforcing laws, attending accidents, dealing with commu- riots/protests, crowd management, warrant assistance, spe-
nity safety concerns, investigating crime, preventing anti-social cialist clandestine operations, counter-terrorism operations,
behavior, undertaking operational patrols, lawfully operating sieges, searches for violent/armed persons, and close personal
police vehicles, and managing a wide range of persons who protection. 31,33 Reported job tasks include ‘no knock’ warrant
*Correspondence to kate.lyons@student.bond.edu.au
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1 Kate Lyons, Dr. Ben Schram, and Dr. Robin Orr are affiliated with the Bond Institute of Health and Sport, Bond University, Gold Coast,
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Australia. Kate Lyons, Dr. Rodney Pope, Dr. Ben Schram, and Dr. Robin Orr are affiliated with the Bond University Tactical Research Unit,
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Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia. Dr. Rodney Pope is affiliated with the School of Allied Health, Exercise & Sports Sciences, Charles Sturt
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University, Albury, NSW, Australia. Dr. Karen Kelly is affiliated with the Warfighter Performance, Naval Health Research Center, San Diego, CA.
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