What do police officers perceive as dangerous?

Research on the perception of danger dates to the 1980s, and although perceptions of danger and risk have been examined, relatively little attention has been paid to how officers perceive and understand danger in their work. This leads to an underexplored concept and a conceptual gap for contemporary policing. Thus, this paper focuses on understanding what contextual and situational factors police officers perceive as dangerous. This paper draws on a study that uses a sample of surveys (n = 180) and interviews (n = 11) with police officers in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. This mixed-methods dataset allows for an in-depth account of what police officers perceive as dangerous. The results of this research show that armed robbery, violent domestic dispute, the presence of a gun, and the presence of any other weapon were the most agreed-upon factors that created a sense of danger. This paper aims to bridge the gap in how danger is operationalised and to build on police officers’ perceptions of danger, thereby supporting and extending the existing conceptual framework to better define these perceptions in a modern policing context.