Management and Dealing with Stress in Officers
It is important that law enforcement officers are able to handle stress and build his or her zone of stability. Officers have a ready-made support system in each other. They better understand the special problems and feelings that come with the job that friends and family members don’t. That doesn’t necessarily mean that this relationship with their fellow officers will cure all. Sometimes, because of the “macho” image that police officers uphold, they will give back negative feedback in a situation where an officer needs comfort. For example, an officer shoots someone in the line of duty and is having an emotional struggle with it, and a fellow officer (who thinks he is supporting that officer) makes a comment like, “Good job, that dirt bag deserves it.” In a situation like that, a fellow officer feels worse and more stressed. It is very important for management, whether police or correctional, to make sure that they can properly help out their officers when needed. There are many things that happen on the streets and in prison that can severely effect an officer. It is only with a good management system and staff that officers will have the proper support to move on.
A major stressor is when a law enforcement officer must deal with death. No one is mentally or emotionally prepared to deal with death. When a law enforcement officer has to notify the next of kin, they must pass through stages of notification. The first stage is to prepare by creating a self-protecting sense of social distance for the officer. An experienced officer will be more concerned with containing the emotions of the recipient rather than their concern for how they will cope. The next stage is the delivery. It only takes a few seconds to deliver the news, and the officer will use their badge, uniform, and the formality of the delivery as a way to protect him/herself from this personal situation (Looney & Windsor 1982). Dealing with the pain that you see in other people is a major adjustment. It will take time and experience for a law enforcement officer to cope with this aspect of the job.
The most traumatic event in a law enforcement officer’s job is dealing emotionally with the involvement in a shutting incident. Officers may suffer from pos...
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...lp make a team run smoothly and efficiently. Support must always be shown from management to it’s officers. Reducing stress in officers can effectively help the team run better. Especially in times of need, like death, management needs to step up and use the techniques they have been trained to safely help their officers in troubled times. With a management that can properly help out their team, the team can move on and run efficiently and effectively. When officers need help with an aspect of the job emotionally, and management can step in to help, the officer will feel better knowing that management is on their side and that they are based one hundred percent. A good management can make the difference between and O.K. team and an outstanding team.
References
Jacobson, Edmund (1978). You Must Relax. New York; McGraw Hill.
Looney, H. & J. L. Windsor. (1982) Death Notification: Some Recommendations. The Police Chief. March, page 30-31.
Solomon, R. M. (1988). Post-Traumatic Trauma. The Police Chief. October, page 40-44.
Solomon, R. M. (1990). Administrative Guidelines for Dealing with Officers involved in on-duty shooting situations. The Police Chief. February, page 40.
The job of a law enforcement officer sometimes can be tough. Officer are sometimes plagued with situation that test their ability to enforce the law and maintain order. Police officers today face a constant battle to maintain higher ethical standards. This mission becomes tougher each day when one considers the importance of fighting terrorism, drugs, human trafficking,
I believe the goal of this book is to provide officers the information of how to recognize the deterioration of core values (personally and professionally) and what can take place in their lives if gone uncorrected. The book then ultimately provides specific strategies that can be utilized to reduce the negative emotional and physical impact of a law enforcement career. I believe the book succeeds in doing this.
Chief Concerns. Police Use of Force: The Essentials of Officer Aftercare. Anderson, Beverly J. 2005. http://www.mpeap.com/staff/bevarticle1.pdf
The use of force, particularly with correlation to officer morale and/or inadequate education/training, has become particularly problematic. Measures should be taken to reduce the injury to suspects, particularly physical injury resulting from poor officer tactics or malicious intentions not related to upholding the law. These are problems, which, if properly handled and rectified, will result in improved officer morale, improved relationships with the public as well as ensure a continued upstanding reputation for the oldest police force in the nation.
Law enforcement officers are in constant dangerous situations while out doing their responsibilities. When in these threatening situations, police officers typically have little to no time to determine the right precaution. These precautions may lead to the death of a suspect or even the officer themselves. The media has recently shed light on police brutality with use of force. Use of force could be defined as the amount of effort an officer must use in order to make an unwilling subject compel. Police officers are usually trained to enable the proper responsible to a dangerous situation they may be put in. In this paper I will go through the guidelines that a police officer must obey when considering a certain degree of use of force. Within each guideline there will be the pro and cons with that situation and also a recent case that happened. This paper will also talk about how this topic can be addressed more properly. These guidelines that officer are taught during their training are called Use of Force Continuum.
Death is an elementary word harboring many meanings. It is the feeling of being caught in the grip of inevitably. It is a personal realization that you too are mortal. It is the recognition that one's life is changed forever. The shiny image of a once bright world full of promise dulls. Unfortunately, every individual will experience the death of a loved one at least once in their life. No words can soothe the agony of losing a loved one. State legislatures are familiar with this grief and have created either a coroner system or a medical examiner system. A coroner system consists of a coroner whose responsible for identifying the decreased body, alerting the family members or anyone of close relation, signing the death certificate and most importantly determining the cause of death. The tasks seem simple; however, in practicality the tasks are demanding and impossible to fulfill with the coroner system. Due to the absence of scientific knowledge, elective nature and lack of modern resources, the coroner system is exceeding inefficient and should be replaced with the medical examine...
Being an officer who protects and serves is already quite terrifying. Having to be with inmates that have killed or assaulted people are the worst of the worst. A correctional officer has big responsibilities to keep themselves safe and their families safe when they go home later that day. You have to think about what goes through the minds of the inmates when you have to keep them in check, or watch over them. Do they want to kill you, your family, show up at your house.
I have a great deal of thanks for those who have put their safety on the line to control inmates. However, I also believe they have much to do with the violent outbreaks. For some officers, this position is like a power trip. While there are many honorable officers, you can tell they love the future of the inmates riding in their hands. I have witnessed first hand CO’s getting inmates all wired up knowing the inmate will get themselves in trouble. Often these officers act just as childish as the prisoners! The only difference is the uniforms they’re wearing. The requirements to become a correctional officer is to provide security and to enforce the rules, not to contribute to the
Every job has its ups and downs, but it just happened to be that we, as human beings, tend to drag our work problems with us to our personal life. Knowing how to separate work from personal life is hard, especially in today’s society considering the technology we have today. This research made me aware of the stress and everyday interactions that probation officers endure and I must admit, is more stressful than I thought. I have always imagined a probation officer’s job much more facile not having such a huge caseload, but like they say, ignorance is bliss. In the following essay, I will be discussing the findings about the stress of a probation officer.
Police stress is viewed as a structural problem that is amongst the police culture (Kappeler & Potter, 2005). The argument made is that the working environment causes the stress. Even though a police officers job is not as dangerous officers still determine the danger as a source of stress. Police stress can be split up in to three sources: occupation, job-related and external stress (Kappeler & Potter, 2005). Just the thought of the job gives officers stress. Job-related circumstances such as responding to calls can also create stress. Finally, external sources such as personal stress can all lead to an officer being highly
First, stress in the lives of police officers often result in poor performance from sleep deprivation and panic. Sleep deprivation is one effect that stress can have on officers. The fatigue that stress causes can very literally kill the affected officer. Many times, officers hold anxiety inside them. When they are in bed, they are oftentimes let alone to think, which leads to many “racing thoughts” and “what if’s” (Koeling). Thinking about such things can keep officers awake for hours, leaving them fatigued and sleep-deprived when they report for work the next day. More causes of sleep deprivation are due to stressful, long shifts and odd hours (Casey). As a third-shift security guard for four years, Carl Koeling has had his share of sleep deprivation. In a recent interview, he said that when he stood a sleep-deprived watch, he remembers feeling “lightheaded and woozy” (Koeling). As a psychologist for thirty-eight years, Koeling also knows that fatigue caused by stress can also affect officers’ judgement, balance, and physical health (Koeling). It is vital that these three things be working properly for those in law enforcement, as the work they do often depends on good decision-making, decent balance, and high levels of physical fitness and well-being (Miller “Law Enforcement”). Panic is another effect that stress can have on police officers.
Everyday law enforcement personal have the possibility to face dangerous events in their daily duties. In performing such duties a police officer could come by a seemingly ordinary task, and in a blink of an eye the event can turn threatening and possible deadly. When or if this happens to an officer they won’t have
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Since the inception of this niche in psychology, there has been a greater appreciation for the use of police psychological services. Now almost every police department has a separate psychology department with a number of psychologists working with its other employees. This specialized subset of psychology delivers a number of services to its employees, from assessing qualified applicants, counseling, to suspect profiling and providing expertise during hostage situations. The field has grown tremendously, especially over the last 40 years and has developed into its own sub-specialty with its own dedicated research, journals and professional organizations. During that time, there have been great strides made in developing this relationship betwe...