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Police Practices, Covid19, Portugal, Social Responsibility, Public Management.

The main objective of this article was to study the motivations and practices of the police during the Pandemic caused by Covid19 in Portugal, having as main support the theoretical and methodological assumptions based on the theories of New Public Management and Social Responsibility. For this purpose, we used an expository-descriptive model of analysis supported by the use of qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques. In terms of the time period, this study took place between March 2020 and July 2021. The results showed that the mentioned theories provide the theoretical and methodological framework necessary to study the actions developed by the police in other spheres of society because both are based on the principle of articulation of the different sectors of society in multisectoral collaborative networks. The results also showed that the actions developed by the police during the pandemic crisis availed themselves of both instrumental and ethical, integrative and political assumptions of Social Responsibility for legitimization purposes. However, they are still required to implement strategies to combat racial discrimination, otherwise, all the effort they have been expending in order to implement the proximity policing model is in danger. The originality of this study results from the attempt to understand the actions developed by the police during the Pandemic using theories that defend the logic of networks. In terms of limitations, it is worth mentioning the fact that the study analyzed only one documental source (Newspaper Público). It is expected that in the near future other researchers will study the theme of this article using comparative data sources.