A tall, dark man in a blue uniform enters the door of the small restaurant and glances at the two women sitting in the corner. Mari Harvey looks downward as perspiration seeps from the pores in her forehead. Her heartbeat thumps rapidly as she dashes beneath the table in utter fear of the uniformed man. She only wants to bury herself and escape when suddenly, unconsciousness consumes her.
Noticing Harvey’s anxiety, her friend escorts her to the restroom. When the officer approaches and asks, “What is going on here? Is she in trouble with the law, or is she wanted by the police or something?” her friend replies, “Just get away from her!”
The officer trails them, demanding answers. He discovers that Harvey has policophobia, a fear of law enforcement. The phobia induces anxiety and excessive panic if the victim sees a uniformed officer. Harvey’s condition is rare in the U.S., and most people who fear the police are likely to have a solid reason.
Policophobia was previously referred to as astynomiaphobia, a term derived from the Greek word meaning police-fear, coined by psychologist Dr. Eryx Petalas in the early 1940s. He concluded that some people irrationally fear police officers, but his colleagues rejected this. Though doctors commonly use the word policophobia, it’s an unscientific term. Research is still being performed to further evaluate this phobia.
“There is not much research to find about this phobia and it is rare,” says Dr. Tod Burke, a former police officer and criminal justice professor at Virginia’s Radford University. “Policophobia is extremely different from any other phobia. Typically, it is more common in other countries [besides the United States] where law enforcement is oppressive to the community.”
Beverley Bergman, a family caregiver advocate for the Mental Health Association of Alameda County agrees. “People with historical injustice by the police seem to have shown a higher fear of police. I believe this is from centuries of oppression,” she says.
Harvey’s phobia originates from a harrowing experience with a corrupt federal officer who used to stalk, kidnap, and rape her in the middle of the night. He managed to sneak into her home, drug her, sexually and physically abuse her, and continued to do so for many years.
“He would do sick, nasty things to me and handcuff me,” she says. “It’s still hard for me to talk about it.”
Harvey recalls that she was always afraid when an officer in a uniform appeared, but it was in the restaurant that she first felt so terrified.
The officer who provoked her anxiety in the restaurant volunteered to help her overcome the phobia. Every night for many months, Harvey would try to get closer to the officer in an attempt to come face-to-face with him.
In full uniform, the officer would face his back to her. They began by speaking to each other from across the room, and later, Mari was able to take steps towards him. Eventually, she approached the officer and hesitantly shook his hand. She believed she had conquered her fear.
She admits that she still is afraid of officers and is reluctant to trust them. “I have respect for officers and I know that they are not bad people, but I also still have this fear inside of me that prevents me from going outside,” says Harvey, who was disowned by a family who believes her insane.
Harvey prefers to stay inside her cozy home with company to feel safe. Her depression lingers and she refuses to ingest her prescribed anti-depressants. The idea of being shunned and placed in a mental facility prevents her from opening up.
With her faith in Christ and her children by her side, Harvey has stopped visiting the doctor. She doesn’t trust him, and believes he conspires with police. Her confinement even detached her from her best friend—the woman who helped her that dreadful day at the restaurant.
Though officers frighten her, they are here to serve and protect. Police misconduct and brutality are not nonexistent, but they are not common.
It’s natural for many to overreact when a cop pulls them over. But Harvey was victim of torture and abuse. Today, the fifty-two-year-old mother is recuperating from her traumatic experience.
“I just pray to God and hope that things will get better,” she says. “But the wounds still surface from all of the physical abuse and it reminds me of what happened to me.”