The regulations introduced under the UK's Coronavirus Act 2020 to help curb the spread of COVID-19 caused considerable confusion due to conflation between what was regarded as ‘guidance’ and what was ‘law’. The fast-paced nature of the pandemic meant that restrictions on public liberty and increased police powers to enforce the new ‘rules’ led to accusations of over-zealous enforcement behaviour of some officers, including a record number of Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) issued. This paper explores the experiences of police officers in a range of English police forces, using 28 h of qualitative interview data at two research points in time (2020 and 2022). The extracts presented here illustrate some of the challenges that officers faced enforcing the frequently changing rules and regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK.

根据英国《2020 年冠状病毒法案》出台的旨在帮助遏制 COVID-19 传播的法规由于将所谓的“指导”与“法律”混为一谈，造成了相当大的混乱。大流行的快节奏性质意味着对公共自由的限制和警察执行新“规则”的权力增加导致对一些官员过度热心的执法行为的指责，包括发布了创纪录数量的定额罚款通知 (FPN) . 本文使用两个研究时间点（2020 年和 2022 年）的 28 小时定性访谈数据，探讨了一系列英国警察部队中警官的经历。此处提供的摘录说明了在英国 COVID-19 大流行期间，官员在执行频繁变化的规章制度时面临的一些挑战。