The costs associated with law enforcement have seen a sharp increase, driven by rising personnel costs and the growing demand for policing services (Gascón, 2010; Urban Institute, 2020). Considerable discussion has arisen about how science can potentially help law enforcement “do more with less”, and some scholars have suggested introducing new crime control technologies to address this problem (e.g., Roach, 2022; Weisburd & Neyroud, 2011). With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, police departments around the world had additional demand, as they were made responsible for overseeing and ensuring compliance with COVID protocols. As a response, some countries (e.g., Singapore and China; Barrett, 2021) resorted to employing service robots either alongside or in place of police officers to assist with COVID-related compliance tasks.

• Daiane Scaraboto(University of Melbourne, Australia)
• Liliana Bove(University of Melbourne, Australia)
• Qingxuan Zhang(University of Melbourne, Australia)