Essay
Lights flashing, sirens blaring through the streets of Albany, New York. A cop is involved in a high speed car chase. In order to escape the crook breaks through the fence of a local airport. The cops blocked him in the middle of the runway and sent him to jail. This is one of the high stress situations that cops are involved in every day. They have ways of dealing with these stressors. Cops know that there are stressful and scary things to come from working as a police officer. Even when police officers deal with high stress dangerous situations on the job they can still live a healthy personal life.
Stress levels were not as bad as they are today but there were still some stress (Reedy). 20 years ago and beyond there not as many dash cams in cop cars. The lack of dash cams lead to cops having more freedom. More freedom lead to less stress. One cop said that when he first started being a cop they would go out to bars and drink in the parking lot while on the job (Reedy). Sense the 20 years ago and beyond, the current situations cops face have lead them to more stress.
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Some situations that lead cops to stress were 911, and Boston bombing. 123 cops killed in 2015 in the United States (Law enforcement facts 1). 1439 cops working on duty have got shot in the past 10 years (law enforcement facts). Cops job are to keep everyone safe and sense these terrorist attacks happened they are not doing their job. These situations lead cops to post-traumatic stress, survivor guilt (Marx 1). Another incident that lead to cops having more stress was Ferguson Missouri killing lead cops to stress when citizens during that shooting were saying that white cops are
Have you ever wondered what’s it 's like to be a cop? Or what cop’s families go through on a day to day basis? This book Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement written by Kevin M. Gilmartin, Ph.D. gives us an outline on the difficulty and stress that law enforcement officer and their families face on daily basis. Dr. Gilmartin discusses the stages of hypervigilance. And the long-term effects of hypervigilance and the toll it takes on the officer and his or her family.
As crime coexists with humanity, the presence of the police force ensures the suppression of crime and the safety for our society. Every occupation has its own work stress. What is unique is all the different stress found in one job. Aside from the heroic services police officers perform in their duty, they experience overwhelming stress in their daily duty. Police stress refers to the negative pressures related to police work (Police Stress, n.d.). In order to maintain peace and order, there must be an effective police force up and running. For that to happen, departments need to be aware and deal with the negative effects caused by police stress. Whereas, police officers must conquer their stress in order to work at their
Police stress syndrome is when police officers have stress because of the things that they experience during their time on the job. When something bad happens to them or someone else, they happen to have dreams or visualize those horrible experiences. (The Effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, 2014) For example, a police officer is trying the catch a criminal on the run by car and an innocent child runs in front of his car and gets hit. The kid dies and this is something that police officer will always remember and relive, which causes stress. There are law enforcement therapists that know how to deal with the stress that police officers go through. Police officers often go to psychotherapy and take medication to take them out of stress. (The Effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
The history of policing can be traced back to the beginning of time. When looking at the subject of police work there is a large culture and history that follows along with it. There are many topics that can be analyzed when identifying, and describing the elements and the significances that are associated with policing. A large element of the police job that plays a large factor in the work and attributes to the policing culture is the amount of stress that an office will face while performing on the job. Another part of the job that plays a large part in the culture
The list includes but is not limited to depression, social isolation, and chronic anger (Gilmartin, 2002). We as officers and egos often deny this and try to rationalize our behavior all the while this career is taking a toll on us. This toll takes the form of physical health issues, to our personal relationships with our spouses, significant others, and most importantly our children. The good news is that “Many police officers, in fact survive emotionally and remain functional, healthy individuals” (Gilmartin, 2002).
The Book Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement by Dr. Kevin M. Gilmartin is a guide for officers and their families on the journey through law enforcement and how to coop with the ever demanding job officers face. This book discussed the demands of the job and how officers change throughout the course of their career. I will elaborate on several factors that were discussed in the book and how officers, with the proper training, can help combat the stress of the high demand place on them.
“Stressful, but rewarding career. Some must be good at dealing with the public, that is the majority of what they do. But they also must be willing to accept and handle the stress of a dangerous work environment.” Ultimately the increase on murder, rape, and burglary rates, many have came to believe that their police department is ineffective.
Critical incident stress results from the crisis of a critical event such as a death of a loved one, a traumatic incident, or an officer-involved shooting. A crisis for an individual is defined as “the perception or experiencing of an event or situation as an intolerable difficulty that exceeds the person’s current resources and coping mechanisms” (James & Gilliland, 2013, p. 8). For a law enforcement officer, “Mitchell (1991) said that a critical incident is one in which the officer’s expectations of perfect performance suddenly are
7) The need to be in constant emotional control. Law enforcement officers have a job that requires extreme restraint under highly emotional circumstances. They are told when they are extremely excited, they have to act calm. They are told when they are nervous, they have to be in charge. They are taught to be stoic when emotional. They are to interact with the world in a role. The emotional constraint of the role takes tremendous mental energy, much more energy than expressing true emotions. When the energy drain is very strong, it may make the officer more prone to exhaustion outside of work, such as not wanting to participate in social or family life. This energy drain can also create a sense of job and social burnout.
There are many stress categories that law enforcement will face when it comes to performing their occupational duties. The first stress category is internal or individual stress. Stress can happen at any time especially on the internal side as there is always a chance of an “officer worrying about the competency to handle an assignment. “If the assignment they are working on is causing individual stress the feelings of ‘helplessness and vulnerability” starts to happen when they feel the pressure of trying to finish an assignment. Officers start to feel the internal stress that everyone is counting on them to get the assignment they are working on in perfect working order. Since crime never sleeps the assignments that make officers internally stress over each assignment critical which can lead to more time being spent on-duty rather than off-duty. “The dearth of time for personal development can translate into divorce, suicide, alcoholism, or burnout”. The stress of the job and having a family takes its toll but those who can cope with the internal stress of their job and family are the one that can have both at the same time. Although there are some factors of internal stress that can lead officers to eventually “end their career with no family, no friends -other than a few cops-and no outside interests” Officers that have internal stress can have feelings that their “trapped in their profession” because the internal stress of being a law enforcement officers is just to
Even though policing doesn’t make the top 10 most dangerous American job, that does not mean police officers have it easy. Police officers face many dangers in their jobs police officers never truly know the outcomes of nay situation they go into. Dangers that policemen face is the risk of getting shot/death, stress, biohazard exposure, dangers in making arrests and serious/minor trauma. All of these dangers occur is different situations. Such as arrest, vehicle stops, hazmat scenes, and even directing traffic.
Police officers spend most of their time on duty around other officers. Overtime a subculture can form in response to constant exposure to each other. Police subculture consists of a combination of shared norms, values, goals, career patterns, lifestyles, and occupational structures (Dempsey and Forst, date). It is noted that traits exist in this subculture, such as clannishness, secrecy, honor, loyalty, individuality, and isolation from the public (Dempsey and Forst,). In correlation to the Michael Dowd case, police officers assigned to the seven five precinct formed their own secret group, where loyalty was expected. For instance, Dowd entrusted other NYPD officers to help him engage
Interestingly, physical danger is ranked low on the list of stresses by police officers! A study of 2376 Buffalo NY police officers found that compared to the white male population police officers had higher mortality rates for cancer, suicide, and heart disease (Constant). Suicide is one of the worst effects that stress can have on police officers.
In addition, police officer exposed to high levels of stress relate to their job have been at an increased risk for adverse health problems, including depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder, (Grant & Terry, 2012).
Police Officers work is never routine. The diverse work load for officers range for long periods of tediousness too adrenaline-driven, life threatening activities. Decisions stand within each context of work effectiveness. While using discretion, officers entrusted to manage criminal episodes while simultaneously protecting basic citizen liberties.