Research Spotlight: Rethinking Civilian Roles in Modern Policing

These civilian personnel help police agencies interpret information, support investigations, manage complex operations, communicate with communities, and sustain the organizational work that makes public safety possible. Their roles have expanded as policing has become more technologically complex, fiscally pressured, and dependent on specialized knowledge.

That expansion is examined in “Policing without a badge: a scoping review of civilian personnel experience and impact in law enforcement agencies,” by Vincent Mousseau, Geneviève Morin, and Étienne Charbonneau. The article sets out what is known, what remains uncertain, and what police leaders still need to examine before treating civilianization as a straightforward solution.

We spoke with one of the authors, Vincent Mousseau, Professor of Forensic Science at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, to learn more about what 25 years of research tells us about civilian personnel in law enforcement agencies.

Civilianization is often discussed as a practical response to budget pressure, workforce shortages, specialized technology, and growing public expectations. The review shows that the policy question is more complicated than simply moving some duties from sworn officers to civilian staff, because the success of these roles depends on organizational culture, training, career conditions, recognition, and evidence about outcomes.

For researchers, the article matters because it gathers a scattered body of empirical work across criminology, sociology, criminal justice, law, psychology, public management, and related fields. For police leaders and policymakers, it matters because it highlights a central governance issue: expanding civilian roles without understanding their workplace experience and actual impact can reproduce inequalities, leave staff unsupported, and make reform look more certain than the evidence allows.

Vincent Mousseau reflected on the broader significance of the study: “Our study reiterates that civilian employees can perform a growing range of police duties, while highlighting the need for police leaders to consider their distinct characteristics, to maximize organizational benefits and minimize negative experiences. More attention should thus be given to these professionals as they take on increasingly important roles in policing.”

The article identifies several areas where the evidence is strong enough to guide discussion, while also showing where conclusions remain tentative. Three contributions stand out.

• Civilian personnel are now part of a wider range of police work than older accounts suggest. The review describes civilian roles in intelligence analysis, technical support, forensic science, digital analysis, human resources, finance, training coordination, call handling, legal services, detention, community liaison, and management, with some civilians also involved in community patrol and investigations.
• Integration remains a central challenge. The most common theme in the reviewed literature was integration into police culture. Many studies found that sworn officers may undervalue civilian expertise, while civilian staff may feel unaccepted, underused, or excluded from meaningful decision-making.
• The impact of civilian staff on policing is one of the least developed parts of the evidence base. Only 11 of the 60 studies assessed policing impact directly, and the findings were mixed, with some studies finding little or no effect and others suggesting positive or negative effects depending on role, outcome, and context.

Vincent reflected on what surprised him most in the evidence: “Two findings were particularly surprising. First, although civilian employment in policing has steadily increased since the 1960s, we found that its added value is widely assumed but rarely tested or measured empirically. Second, we found that several recent studies report the same challenges with integration and career advancement identified 20 years ago, suggesting that progress may have been more limited than some might have expected.”

The authors conducted a scoping review using the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews. They searched five bibliographic databases, added results from the first 20 pages of Google Scholar, reviewed relevant reference lists, applied inclusion and exclusion criteria, and arrived at a final set of 60 empirical peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2025.

The review combined quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods evidence. The authors examined publication characteristics, civilian roles, data sources, methodological designs, analytical strategies, outcomes, and practical implications, then organized study outcomes into five themes: police culture and civilian integration, personnel policies and organizational structure, work stress and wellbeing, impact on policing, and equality and respect for diversity.

In the workflow described by the authors, Evidano, then known as AILYZE, helped structure data extraction from the included studies around a predefined coding grid. The article notes that this made it possible to “systematically structure data extraction while leaving room for researchers’ expertise,” which is an important distinction because the tool supported the process rather than replacing scholarly judgment.

The authors retained control over interpretation throughout the review. Two coders independently extracted data, manually checked flagged studies against the original material, compared results, reviewed discrepancies, and created a final consolidated version.

Vincent also noted how AI tools can support careful research workflows when used responsibly: “Extracting a large amount of information from 60 studies, Evidano made our research process considerably more efficient. With no previous systematic literature review on this topic, reducing analysis time was a real advantage, allowing us to make this synthesis available sooner to researchers, police leaders, and practitioners. I believe researchers using AI-assisted analysis should first remain focused on their research goals: is AI actually helping to achieve those goals, or is it simply being used because it is a new and attractive technology? AI outputs should also always be checked against the original data. In our case, the tool did not hallucinate information, but it did occasionally miss elements we found relevant, an important limitation when the goal is to systematically review the literature.”

The article invites a more careful conversation about civilianization as a public management strategy. Civilian personnel may bring specialized expertise, broaden workforce pathways, and help agencies respond to new forms of crime and organizational complexity, but these potential benefits depend on whether agencies support civilians with adequate training, recognition, resources, and career structures.

For scholars, the review also points toward a richer research agenda. More comparative studies, more longitudinal designs, and more precise distinctions among civilian roles would help clarify when civilianization works, for whom, and under what organizational conditions.

Vincent offered this takeaway for researchers and police leaders: “Civilian staff are becoming an increasingly important part of law enforcement agencies, as police organizations face growing demands and pressures. Better understanding their experiences and contributions is therefore essential to develop evidence-based strategies that maximize their potential while supporting their effective recruitment, integration and retention.”

Ultimately, the study shows that civilian staff are not peripheral to modern policing. They are part of the institutional architecture of law enforcement, and understanding their experience, recognition, wellbeing, and impact is essential for building police organizations that are effective, fair, and sustainable.