Assignment 1: Controlling The Effects Of Policing

Controlling the effects of policing A police officer is responsible for service, maintaining order, and law enforcement. Majority of officers’ time is spent on service and maintaining order and not crime fighting. According to Meghan S. Stroshine, law enforcement officers spend on average 19% on fighting violent and non-violent crimes, while spending the other 81% maintaining order and providing services to the public (2016). However, being a police officer is a dangerous job that can effect both the physical body, but also the officer’s mental health, as John M. Violanti, a researcher at University at Buffalo’s Department of Social and Preventive Medicine stated, “Policing is a psychologically stressful work environment filled with danger,

These potential dangers are encounter on every shift and can include injury or death from foot pursuits, vehicle accidents, assaults from criminals, exposure to hazardous material, contagious diseases, undercover work, and much more. A study of 1,187 cases of assaults on United States police officers conducted by Claire Mayhew, a researcher at the Australian Institute of Criminology, exposed four significant features to these cases. Two significant correlations were performed and found officers whom had completed higher levels of education and had more years of service exhibited a decrease in the frequency of assaults. Additionally, the majority of officers that were assault were not properly armed and the gender of both the offenders and the officer were not a significant factor on the viciousness of the assaulted. (Mayhew, 2001). These results from Mayhew, demonstrates the importance of education and resources, which represents the necessity to educated officers and promote different types of programs to minimize the potential hazards of the

A study conducted by Steven G. Bandl and Meghan S. Stroshine, investigates accidents that resulted in injuries or death involving police officers and fire departments. The results of the study discovered the most common cause of injury was accidents, 50.4%, followed by a resisting subject, 39.2%, and assaultive subject, 10.4%. The most common injury resulting from accidents was the expose and or contact with infectious diseases. Another interesting result was if officers took time off due to the injury, as 87.7% of officers did not take off of work due to injuries. Of police officers injuries from assaultive subjects, 67% of them required medical attention, but only 7.5% of the had time off of work. Bandl and Stroshine further discussed the other potential effects of the policing career by including a 1983 study by Cullen, Link, Travis, and Lemming. The study found an increase in stress and depression in officers as a result from the everyday dangers and hazards of policing. An additional study in Brandl and Stroshine’s article is the McMurray study. McMurry discovered that even though it is rate to obtain injuries from assaults, the officers are likely to have psychological injuries that have effect both physical and mental health of the officer, which in turn could trigger more injuries.