How Distressing Material Shapes Investigator Well-Being

The following transcript was generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies. Paul: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. Today’s episode focuses on a topic that has gained increasing attention but still doesn’t get the depth of discussion it deserves: the psychological impact of working with distressing material in law enforcement roles. I’m incredibly pleased to be joined by Dr. Duran, whose recent longitudinal study explores how exposure to traumatic material affects staff over time. Dr. Duran, thank you very much for joining me today. Can you tell us about yourself and your links to the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) Academic Working Group? Fazeelat: Thank you, Paul, for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m an assistant professor in psychology at the University of Birmingham, and I’m also a co-chair for the secondary investigators and analysts subgroup that falls under recruitment, retention, and wellbeing of investigators at national level. I’ve been working with law enforcement officials for 11 years now to improve their mental health and wellbeing. I not only work with frontline officers, but also people who are not on the frontline — secondary investigators and analysts — to improve their mental health and wellbeing. Get The Latest DFIR News Join the Forensic Focus newsletter for the best DFIR articles in your inbox every month. Unsubscribe any time. We respect your privacy - read our privacy policy. Paul: That’s fantastic. 11 years is a long time to be researching this area. Fazeelat: Initially I was researching with frontline police officers, but while I was conducting those studies I also identified a group of people who work in offices. They don’t go to crime scenes but are exposed to distressing material. At that time, to my knowledge, there was no research with this group of professionals. That was around 2020, and that’s when we got funding and the journey started looking into this group of professionals. Paul: In your research, you refer to concepts like secondary traumatic stress. For those listening who may not be familiar with that term, how would you explain it and why is it so important in these roles? Fazeelat: Secondary traumatic stress is the impact of being exposed to other people’s trauma indirectly rather than experiencing it directly. So law enforcement staff — or secondary investigators and analysts, as I call them just to differentiate them from frontline roles. There’s nothing secondary about their roles, to be honest; it’s just to have that distinction between the frontline roles and the people who are not on the crime scenes. Law enforcement staff might be reviewing distressing footage or images. They listen to difficult recordings or read detailed case files. Over time, this can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms such as intrusive thoughts, emotional exhaustion, or difficulty switching off while working. These roles are different from the frontline roles because they have that repeated exposure. As exposure is repeated and often hidden, people may be affected without it being recognised or supported. Paul: That leads me quite nicely into the gap your latest study is addressing. What was missing from the existing research that your study aimed to capture? Fazeelat: When we conducted this study, between 2021 and 2023, there was limited focus on law enforcement staff, SIAs, or digital forensic analysts who are indirectly exposed to trauma. There’s significant growth in literature now — our review has recently been accepted, and we found 63 studies out there, nationally and internationally. Most studies just gave a snapshot of what was happening at one specific time point — they were cross-sectional in nature. We wanted to see the bigger picture: how their experiences built up over time, how day-to-day exposure shapes their mental wellbeing. Paul: That really stood out for me when I read the paper. I was so pleased to see it was a longitudinal study, because this is something that has been missing from this area of business since time began. There is no other longitudinal study done in this area, is there? Fazeelat: To our knowledge, this was the first longitudinal study. However, in our review we did identify one other longitudinal study. How ours is different is that we conducted the study with newly recruited staff — fresh graduates with no previous exposure. As soon as they joined the roles, we recruited them, conducted interviews after six months, then followed them again at 12 months and 18 months. Paul: You’ve just touched on a really important point there. Your study participants were brand new investigators just starting the job. Fazeelat: Clean slate, nothing in their memory, so we could know exactly what was happening was because of what they were working with, rather than what they had brought from their previous roles. Paul: And that’s why this study is so important — you’ve done it over three time periods, starting with absolutely brand new investigators, then following them at six, 12 and 18 months. And you interviewed them to get their view of what was happening for them at that time. Fazeelat: Yes. We wanted to understand how they work with this material, what their coping strategies are, whether they have any coping strategies at all, and whether working with this material impacts their mental health. We also wanted to touch on what organisations are doing — are they providing any support to their employees while they’re working with this horrendous material? That’s what we wanted to capture from the beginning. Paul: It’s a fantastic concept and a mammoth undertaking. As a researcher myself, I understand the work that’s gone into accomplishing this. Fazeelat: It was a tedious job. Paul: An absolutely huge job. I doff my cap. By doing it over these three time points, you were able to observe changes in mental health and wellbeing over that time? Fazeelat: Yes. We were able to see changes in their feelings, emotions, behaviour, and we also saw some physical changes, which we weren’t expecting. We also saw changes in their motivations — how they started the roles with certain motivations, and later on those motivations were changing. It was quite rich data in that regard. We were identifying a number of factors we weren’t expecting. Paul: So just to give the listeners a clearer view about the sample, can you tell us a bit more about who the participants were — the demographics, if you like? Fazeelat: I’ll try to be as confidential as I can. We focused on law enforcement staff who handle most of the serious crimes and sensitive cases. Their work involved going through interviews, case files, and graphic material around adult or child sexual assault and homicide cases. They are not at the crime scenes — our participants were not at crime scenes. They would not attend the crime scenes themselves, but they would see and process the details every day, which can take a real emotional toll. These are the people working behind the scenes, carrying heavy responsibilities that most of us never see. We wanted to understand how repeated exposure to this kind of material affects their mental health and emotional wellbeing over time. Paul: One of the really interesting findings was that around the six-month period, participants weren’t reporting any significant distress. Why do you think that is? Fazeelat: At the six-month mark, our participants often reported little or no distress, which we could see in the data itself. Early on, their exposure is limited because when they started their roles they were in a training phase where they were exposed to the material gradually. They weren’t working on live cases yet — they were having training and depending on the support provided within the organisation. There’s also a novelty effect at play. They felt everything was manageable, meaningful. They were quite motivated — “we are here to bring change” — and quite optimistic. At this stage, my understanding was that they often underestimate just how emotionally taxing this work can be at a later stage. Paul: I would absolutely agree with that. It’s one of the things I’ve quite often said: there is no way you can prepare yourself for what you’re about to be exposed to in that type of work. It’s quite gruelling once you get into it. Fazeelat: I agree. It’s just that at that early stage, you’re not working on live cases. You don’t know what’s coming up. That’s why we started interviews at six months rather than zero months — so they would have had some training, we could capture that, and then we could see the changes happening rapidly around 12 to 18 months. Paul: Were there any subtle indicators at that stage that suggested difficulties were beginning to develop beneath the surface? Fazeelat: That’s interesting. Even when participants didn’t show obvious distress early on, there were subtle warning signs I noticed. These could include how often these crimes were happening — they weren’t aware of the volume of crimes they would be exposed to, which often reflected that the participants were still new to the role and hadn’t fully grasped the scale or frequency of the cases they would encounter. There were some other tips as well. When they were saying they didn’t come with any coping strategies — they were going with the flow — that seemed like not a good idea while in these roles. Then there was a really interesting thing they mentioned: when they joined these roles, they wanted to make society better indirectly. In our cross-sectional study, we found something called belief in a just world — when you believe good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. But when they came across the fact that bad things could also happen to good people, and that could go unnoticed, that could put them more at risk of distress. This was exactly what we were seeing when we were speaking with them in early days — they were at risk of distress because they didn’t know what they were getting into. Paul: Just on a side note — the participants clearly weren’t ready for, or didn’t really have the knowledge of, what they were about to be exposed to. Do you think pre-training and pre-coping strategies as part of their introduction to the role might be a good idea? Fazeelat: After having these findings, we conducted workshops with clinical psychologists, occupational psychologists, practitioners, and senior leaders — wellbeing practitioners — to understand the best approach. We think recruitment needs to be quite transparent in terms of what you’re going to get into. And psychological screening should not just be for the sake of ticking boxes. It should be fully integrated in the system. Mental health training shouldn’t be just one or two slides during inductions. You need proper training in developing resilience. If you prepare them early on, they will develop resilience, or if they identify any signs and symptoms of distress, they should be able to speak up or ask for help. Paul: That’s a great answer because it really resonates with something I’ve often argued for — a proactive approach to mental health and wellbeing, as opposed to the reactive approach currently often in existence. Fazeelat: Exactly. When they were saying it was more reactive and they wanted support that was more proactive and also met their needs — it should not be a universal support. We discussed this in the paper as well: we don’t want a blanket support, we want support that is more relevant to us and meets our needs. Paul: That came across very clearly in the paper. And again, I was so pleased to see it, because it’s something I’ve often argued — that it should be tailored to their needs and not the one-size-fits-all approach. Fazeelat: No, exactly. Paul: So initially, things appeared relatively manageable for them around the six-month period, but that doesn’t last very long, does it? Fazeelat: No, it did not last very long. When I interviewed them at time point two — at 12 months — and time point three at 18 months, the changes in their behaviours, feelings and emotions were almost similar. That’s why when we wrote the findings, we merged those time points in the paper. They did share a lot within those time points, and it was like, “Oh, are these the same participants I spoke to six months back?” Because now they had started working on live cases. Their exposure to the live cases was not at maximum yet — it was minimum still. They were still working with minimum cases at time point two. What we found was that they were identifying gradually that there was an emotional toll on them. Participants described being mentally and physically exhausted and drained, struggling with intrusive thoughts about cases while not at work. They would tell us they were hypervigilant — not only about themselves, but also about others and their loved ones. For example, if they went out for a walk, they would be worried about them. Some shared that they would double-check their doors, whether they were closed or locked, or windows were locked. Or if they were sitting in a car, they would share the location with their loved ones — “I’m sitting in this taxi, I will share…” This kind of information was shared — developing precautionary behaviours. There was also a shift in the view of the world — beliefs were changing — and how they were feeling lonely and isolated, even when they would be in social gatherings, because they could not share what they were working on. And if they shared, others wouldn’t understand what they were working on. These changes were not limited. They also spoke about sleep problems and coping strategies. There was a lot going on within those 12 and 18 months for this group of professionals. It was quite a busy period in terms of work, but at the same time of the impact it was having on their mental health. Paul: That’s a really rapid, significant change in a six-month period, isn’t it? Fazeelat: It is. While we were conducting the interviews, we were also collecting psychometric test data from them. We were lucky enough to see whether that was something being evident in our survey as well. We measured their depression, burnout, PTSD symptoms, and sleep disturbance. Paul, what we came across was that at zero months they had no symptoms, but at six months their symptoms started increasing, at 12 months we could see the trajectory was going high, and at 18 months there were a couple of participants who had clinical levels of depression. That shows what people are saying is not just subjective — because with qualitative, they’re subjective, isn’t it? Having data collected through different methods helps us make our case strong: this is what they’re saying, and this is also evident in our surveys. We also scanned their brains. It was quite a mixture of findings showing that it does impact, it does cause psychological distress. What they’re saying is not just subjective — it does impact them. Paul: Adopting that mixed methods approach where you’re employing psychometrics and you’re gathering qualitative data is absolutely the best of both worlds. Because as you’ve shown in your later study, the qualitative and quantitative data actually complement each other. They are telling the same story. Fazeelat: Exactly. That’s what made my case strong — they’re not just saying anything; it is actually happening. Paul: Just a fabulous study. Absolutely fabulous. Fazeelat: Thank you. Paul: So you introduce the idea of dosage of exposure, which I think is a really powerful concept. Can you explain what that means and how it contributes to worsening mental health? Fazeelat: With this group of professionals — secondary investigators and analysts — what we came across was that the exposure was not just one-off. It was repeated exposure, and the dosage of exposure matters. At the training phase they had no exposure, they weren’t working on live cases, but then they started working on live cases. We found that the amount and intensity of exposure to distressing material really shaped participants’ mental health over time. The more often and more intensely they encountered these cases, the faster and more severe their symptoms became. For example, even when they were reviewing just a few sensitive case files each day — sexual assault or homicide cases — or just listening to the interviews, that was enough for some participants to start showing symptoms. However, we also had some participants who had moderate exposure but were not struggling at the same time — they were still doing well. That shows individual vulnerability and coping strategies play a big role, and why it’s important to notice early warning signs before the impact builds up. That’s how dosage came in within our story. Paul: I thought that was a really strong concept. Obviously, I’ve read a lot of research in this area, and all of the research out there — most of which, save for your latest study, has been cross-sectional — has argued that there’s a cumulative effect where exposure builds up over time rather than impacting people immediately. That’s how digital forensic investigators and analysts become susceptible to the known stressors. But I have to say, your longitudinal study, having monitored these investigators coming in from zero to 18 months, really strengthens that case. It very clearly shows that by the time they get to 18 months, they are significantly affected. Fazeelat: It’s because they don’t have to go through one case one time. They have to go through it multiple times to create the reports, or categorise the images, or whatever they have to do as part of their roles. It’s not one-off — they have to do that multiple times during the day. It’s quite exhausting and tedious work where you are continuously being exposed, so that does lead to cumulative stress. Paul: And when you say they’re doing it multiple times during the day, we’re talking about hours and hours of daily exposure to this material, aren’t we? Fazeelat: Yes. We had participants who were full-time employees. They were working from 9:00 to 5:00, and — I’m being cautious in terms of not giving anything away about the organisation — but if they’re working on one case, that could lead to multiple more cases. They could be exposed to potentially between 300 and 500 cases. We don’t know — it all depends on the crime they’re working on, or the case they’re working on. So it’s not an easy job. Not everyone can do this job. Paul: I would absolutely agree with that. Fazeelat: You know that because you’ve been in that role for such a long time, so you know better than me — it’s not everyone’s job. Not everyone is designed to do that job. Paul: No. During my time working in that area of business, I saw many people come into the room thinking, “We can do this.” They’ll sit down, they’ll last a week, and they’re gone — because they realise the material they’re dealing with. Some people just can’t do it, and that’s fine. Fazeelat: We had a number of participants who left the job within 18 months — who started and left within 18 months. Paul: That doesn’t surprise me. Fazeelat: There were a number of them. At the 12-month interview, some were saying they were either looking at moving to different units, or looking at different jobs because they wanted to move away from this. It was not just because of the material they were working with, but also dependent on the organisational culture in terms of how they look after your mental health. Paul: That’s a whole other conversation we might get into later. I might come back to that. Another key part of your study looked at coping strategies. How did the ways people coped with this work change over time? Fazeelat: That’s interesting. As I mentioned before, when we started the interviews they were like, “We don’t have any coping strategies. We’re going with the flow. We are dependent upon our employer because they are doing a lot for us. We know what resources or whom to approach when we need help.” But when we reached 12 months, they were like, “Okay, I think we need some coping strategies now.” Their coping strategies started refining. Some were having self-care activities — they started meditation, mindfulness, exercise, which they were doing naturally, such as walking and baking. They would avoid Netflix and not watch movies or dramas that were serious or related to crime. While talking about coping strategies, some were adaptive and some were maladaptive. This could be because there wasn’t proper training for them in identifying which strategies were appropriate while working with this material. Therefore, they were having their own strategies which could make things worse rather than better. Paul: You mentioned maladaptive coping strategies started to emerge. Can you describe what those were? Fazeelat: One of the popular ones was thought suppression. Once they were away from the material, what would happen is these thoughts would come to their mind, which is natural because you’re working on that material. They would suppress these thoughts. For example, when they were charging their phone, they would not leave the charger on the bedside — they would think someone would come and strangle them with it. Or while sitting somewhere, murder images might pop up of the victim or the suspect. In our brain, there is a memory box. When we are suppressing these negative thoughts, the likelihood of these negative thoughts increases when the memory box is full. Because we have this memory box, at the end of the day it gets full, and when it explodes, these negative thoughts come up more often rather than decreasing. Most of them said they were suppressing thoughts, which is not an appropriate coping strategy. It might be better in the short term, but it’s not good in the longer term. Paul: There’s a lot of research out there that mirrors exactly what you’ve just said. Fazeelat: I was like, “Oh, wow.” That means they’re not aware of what coping strategies are. Some said they would discuss the cases with their peers, but then the peers would say, “They’re discussing the cases with us, but there are triggers within those cases that might impact us, that might trigger our vulnerabilities.” So that could put them more at risk of distress. Having that understanding around what are adaptive and maladaptive strategies is required in a timely manner, so they’re aware from the beginning what approach they should take. I’m not saying take this approach or that approach — it’s just identifying what is good and what is bad, and then taking the approach that fits you well. Paul: Something just popped into my mind while you were talking. You talked about the positive coping strategies, and you mentioned baking or watching Netflix, for example. One thing that occurred to me was that those are quite solitary activities. That’s quite contrary to a lot of the research out there, which suggests that the bigger social circle you have helps reduce the stress. So even though they are in one instance positive coping strategies in respect of help-seeking behaviour, there could also be negative coping strategies because they’re not having that social interaction which could help reduce the stress. Fazeelat: That’s the thing. But when they are in social gatherings, they feel lonely after being in these roles. They don’t feel they can be part of the group because others don’t understand. For example, if someone asks, “How was your work?” — they can’t discuss it. And it was really interesting to see that there were some wellbeing resources organised by the employer, but this fed back into the organisational piece, where they said they couldn’t make use of those resources because they didn’t have time. Paul: And that brings me beautifully into organisational and operational stresses. Because as you will have realised, your latest study isn’t the only study you’ve done in this area — you’ve done a few now, haven’t you? Based on the research you’ve done, you must have realised that because of the volume of this work that comes in now — and it is vast, only made bigger by the introduction of AI-generated material, which in itself is an absolute nightmare. Fazeelat: Exactly. It’s a lot to go through. Paul: So these guys never stop, do they? Fazeelat: No. With AI, it’s a never-ending process now. They say even if they’re not working, their brain is still working because it’s a non-stop process. The amount of volume and the workload up there with limited staff is the biggest challenge we observed while conducting this study. Paul: Because these units often have a limited number of personnel, and it takes a long time to become fully trained before they can do investigations solo. And then you’ve got the volume of work coming through the door, being dealt with by a handful of people in some forces. The time that they have is quite often solely focused on the work they’ve got — they don’t have the time to go and interact with occupational health, for example, do they? Fazeelat: No, that’s the thing. That came up within our intervention study as well, where we were designing interventions and testing some interventions. This came up consistently — even if there are resources, if we don’t have allocated time to make use of them, these resources won’t be useful. They won’t have a purpose if you don’t have time to do it. It’s more around mindset. I agree with you on that, and it’s consistent with previous and current literature. Paul: And again, I think this leads us quite nicely into something I found particularly striking in your latest study — the idea of a psychological contract between staff and the organisation. Can you explain what that is and how it played into your findings? Fazeelat: That’s interesting because I did my PhD on psychological contract in frontline officers, and I was not expecting this at all here. A psychological contract is basically an unwritten agreement between an employee and an employer — a mutual agreement between the two parties. We found that our participants mentioned they were expecting support, training, and a fair workload when they joined their roles, and we could observe that because of the longitudinal nature of the study. When these were not met, staff felt let down. They became cognitively aware that there was a psychological contract breach. In our study, participants faced burnout from high workload, limited staffing, and strict deadlines — deadlines was a big thing. Many considered resigning due to lack of career development and support. Essentially, they felt their organisation hadn’t fulfilled its obligations, adding another layer of stress on top of their challenging work. Paul: You’ve just answered my next question. I was just formulating that question in my head, and you’ve just answered it. So it does sound like the organisational environment can either buffer or amplify the impact of the work itself. Fazeelat: It was acting more like a moderating, or an underlying mechanism, where it explains an additional risk factor that could lead to distress. Paul: So thinking about the practical side of this, what should organisations be doing differently based on the findings from your study? Fazeelat: Creating a culture that cares. That is really important for me. This could include psychoeducation sessions to help staff recognise early warning signs. This could be training on adaptive or maladaptive coping strategies. This could be support from your manager to build resilience, having a confidential atmosphere where there is no mental health stigmatisation. If you ask for help, it’s normal. It’s not something that means you’re weak — everyone goes through it. I would also say one more thing that’s consistently coming up from this longitudinal paper and my other studies: workload. Workload needs to be addressed. If we are creating resources for them but the workload is too high and there’s no allocated time, it’s of no use. If we want to help them, we actually need to make some changes around that as well. Paul: I mentioned before we started the recording — I’ve been working on a systematic review looking at studies over the past five years. One of the things that really comes through strongly is autonomy over workload, and the positive impact that could have if given to the actual analysts and investigators themselves. Fazeelat: That will be exciting to hear. Getting that peer review and the impact it could have could make the case further stronger. We can see that what we are saying does make sense, and there is evidence for it. Paul: Absolutely. You mentioned the importance of early intervention, particularly within the first six to 12 months. Why do you think that’s so critical? Fazeelat: Like I said, our investigators and analysts were completely new, fresh, with a blank slate. It’s really important to be clear from the beginning what the roles are expecting from you. Providing early support, training, and manageable exposure during this period could help prevent distress from escalating later. Paul: Wise words. In terms of preparation, how can we better equip people entering these roles to manage what they’re going to be exposed to? Fazeelat: I mentioned this before, but to summarise concisely: preparations need to cover both practical and psychological aspects. Transparency around their roles, resilience-building strategies, realistic briefings, and mentoring can all help equip staff to perform effectively while protecting their mental health. One thing that came up was that these people come with an expectation to make a change in society. While in these roles, at times they don’t get feedback on what happened to the cases they have worked on. That could lead to a feeling that what they’re doing is of no value, and as a result cause distress. Having that clarity in the beginning — that you would not always have closure to the cases you’re working on — could put them less at risk of distress. Paul: It’s very interesting that you’ve mentioned that. I’ve read some recent research that says exactly that — not having or not knowing how the case ended does have an impact on the person who’s done all the work. Fazeelat: It did come up consistently within our findings. It mattered for them a lot. Some of them were having thoughts like, “Why are we here? We don’t know. We have been working on these cases which would take such a long time, but then we don’t have any feedback on what happened.” If there’s a high-profile case, you come to know through different platforms, but on other cases you don’t get any feedback. Not having that closure does impact you. Paul: I totally understand. If there are people listening right now who are working in these roles, what would you want them to take away from your research? Fazeelat: I would say distress builds up over time, like we saw in our study. It is often hidden at first — you asked me, were there any early warning signs? It might be hidden at first if you’re not aware of the signs and symptoms of distress. Each of us has a different response to stress. I might show physical symptoms — when I’m distressed I get headaches — whereas my colleague, when she’s distressed, starts losing her hair. Different people respond to stress in different manners, so having awareness around what your signs and symptoms of distress are is really important. We all are replaceable. Look after your own mental health because that’s your priority. That affects not only your professional life, but also your personal life, because it has a ripple effect. Paul: It absolutely does. You touched on something really interesting there — the somatic effects of working in this area. As we know, mental health stresses can become physical symptoms, can’t they? Fazeelat: Exactly. I get headaches when I’m stressed, but some of my colleagues say they get sleep disturbance, nightmares. Others said, “Okay, I get hair loss.” Different people respond to stress in different ways because each of us is different. We show different signs and symptoms, so the interventions or strategies need to be different as well, because the one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t fit here. Paul: Absolutely. I cannot agree with that statement more strongly. In terms of the research itself, what are the next steps? Fazeelat: Soon we are going to publish our brain imaging findings, and we are also conducting intervention studies where we’re testing multiple interventions. Recently, we have received some funding from a government source to look at how neurodivergent individuals work with distressing material. This came up within my interviews and within my conferences — “Did you look into neurodivergence?” — and I was like, “Hmm, that’s something I missed.” Thankfully, we have received that funding, and hopefully the contracts get sorted so we can kick off. I’ll be reaching out to Paul to help me. Paul: I’m so pleased that you’ve said that. I think I might have discussed this with you privately — the study that I did along with two others, looking exactly at neurodivergence in digital forensics. Fazeelat: That would be fantastic. I would really be reaching out to you regarding that. I think that would be a really good piece of work for us to start on, in terms of co-designing — we’re also thinking about co-designing the survey. Thinking about what is important and reaching out to different stakeholders, professionals, and experts like yourselves to identify if there are any factors we’re missing. You can let us know, “Oh, you should include this.” Paul: Well, I think they’re all missing factors. Fazeelat: Okay. Paul: And I genuinely can’t wait to share that with you. There are some of the results from the wellbeing study that I’ve just closed — some of those results refer directly to neurodivergence in digital forensics. And there is a massive finding in there which I’m not going to share in this podcast. Fazeelat: I’m quite excited to know now. Paul: We’ll talk about it when I stop the podcast. But it’s a significant finding. Fazeelat: Oh, that’s interesting. Paul: Really interesting. So in closing — before I close the podcast — is there anything else you would like to say to the people watching? Fazeelat: With this piece of work, when I started with this group of professionals, I didn’t expect to have such a massive impact. I had people who were really thankful, quite emotional, saying, “Thank you for doing this piece of work, focusing on us rather than just frontline officers. Someone has made that change.” That was really appreciative of them. It shows me they do something quite significant. They are highly skilled and dedicated, but they are not immune to the impact of what they’re exposed to. They are humans like us. That came across quite strongly to me — even though we think, “Oh wow, they’re quite highly skilled,” they are humans like us. Paul: Do you think that response from them also reflects how under-researched this field is? Fazeelat: When they said that, I started digging into whether there are any longitudinal studies, and there were none. I was like, “Oh wow, this…” So now this is expanding because I work quite closely with practitioners, analysts, and investigators. I speak to them, and they give me input. They said, “What about us? We are neurodivergent.” I was like, “Hmm, I did not focus on that.” Working closely with them gives me a good understanding of what I’m doing — it’s more translational. It’s not just for the sake of research, but also showing what changes could be made within policy and organisations themselves, like forces or law enforcement organisations. Paul: Professor Duran, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. It’s an incredibly important piece of work, and one I think will resonate with many investigators out there. And thank you to everyone for listening. If you found this episode helpful, please do share it with colleagues and others who may benefit from it. We will include a link to the paper we’ve been talking about today in with the podcast, so you can access it. Thanks for watching.