Stress Is A Common Factor Among Law Enforcement

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.

After collecting both sets of data, researchers concluded that police officers experience two different types of stress while on the job (2002). This includes both physical and psycho-social stress. The data also showed researchers that police officers are actually anticipating stress as they go about their day. The data shows that many officers suffer anticipatory stress at the beginning of each shift. Researchers also concluded that before, as well as during critical incidents police officers experience the highest levels of stress

Unfortunately police stress doesn't just affect police, but people they interact with on a daily basis, such as co-workers, family, friends and the public. Signs of police stress include lack of effort or even lack of attendance and early retirement. A spike in community complaints can be a sign of over aggressiveness as a result of stress. Police stress may start from the bottom, but will eventually find its way into the top ranks because a police officer doesn’t represent their self or just the department but anyone that puts on a uniform just like them.Badge of life feel

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,

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.

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).

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

Traumatic events can be classified into two, in which the law enforcement officers responded on violent acts and the traumatic events that they witnessed or experienced (Carlier and Gersons, 1994 as cited in Nirenberg, 2009). They can experience trauma on long-term effects which might result in substance use, family problem and might decreased job performance (Regehr et al., 2012 as cited in Nirenberg, 2009). Moreover, while the officers continuously encounter such events, they still have their limits on resisting the effect of these events (Chapin, Brannen, Singer, & Walker, 2008; Patterson, 2009 as cited in Nirenberg, 2009).

Officers, stress plays an important role in the effectiveness of a police officer both on and off duty. Police officers face several types of stress while on the job. The most common stressors come from internal and external factors. Eustress is a common type of stress that is normal and good, even considering the nature of the job of police officers. Distress is behavior outside of the normal range and is harmful to police over a long period of time. Within the department, internal stress factors include officers facing long hours, constant shift changes, issues of pay, lack of promotions, and excessive paperwork. Some external stressors include overly critical media coverage of police activities and investigations, lack of community support, overly lenient courts, and an ineffective criminal justice system.

Stress is a term used by many, is somewhat misunderstood, and often used to describe a negative condition or emotional state. People experience various forms of stress at home, work, in social settings, and when engaged in activities to simply have fun, such as playing sports. Police officers experience stress the same as others, but also in ways much different than the average citizen. The dangers, violence, and tragedy seen by officers result in added levels of stress not experienced by the general population.

These cases make the media and involve everyone in the world to toss out political opinions. Interest and lobby groups take access. And it could all be solved by continuing further education and mandatory mental health checks weekly. The stressors that law enforcement deal with on a daily basis is profound in comparison to most jobs. Most of the stress is psychological. Mental health needs to be observed better on both sides of the spectrum. Officers need more training to deal with the mentally unstable and they need to offered a confidential situation that they can vent their stressors, unjudged by their peers(mandatory for everyone) and allowed the ability to decompress. The mental health issue is never going to be an easy situation

Since the establishment of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department (EMPD) in 2002, it is expected Metro police officers to effectively interface with both perpetrators and victims of crime, including violent crimes like domestic abuse, assaults, hijackings, robberies, shooting; sexual violence and escalating execution and killing of Police Officers have created an unusually dangerous environment for Metro Police Officers to manage. Researcher, U Subramamey (2011) indicates that vicarious trauma exposure on entry into the police force was remarkably high with 99% having been exposed to at least one traumatic event in their lives. The majority (61.1 %) had been exposed to more than one traumatic event (Subramamey, 2011). Aaron (2011) indicates that approximately 08% - 25% of Metro Police Officers suffer constant physical, emotional and psychological challenging situations.

Being a police officer you have to deal with a tons of stress. Stress is hard to understand because it can harm you physically and mentally which called physiologic stress and psychological stress. Physiological stress deals with natural effects on the person as in high blood pressure and heard disease. Psychological stress is hard to evaluate. There are also two main types of stress which are eustress which is positive and distress which is negative. Police officer work relates to distress because it leads to negative feelings and consequences. PTSD which is posttraumatic stress disorder is a mental health condition that is triggered by a terrifying event by experiencing it or even witnessing it. Many officer experience this disorder after

While policing is a necessity in our society today, while to some it can be worthwhile experience for most, with the various negative factors that attribute to this profession will lead to stress, fatigue, then without some form of treatment can lead to a burnout which can result in officers participating destructive behavior. In the modern police agency there are various factors which contribute to the negative impact on officer which include stress, fatigue, and labor relations. When asked which we find as the most significant impact on officers would have to be stress due to the various problems which stem from it. The textbook defines stress as “Anything that places a positive or negative adjudicative demand on an organism” (Schmalleger

Stress is unhealthy for the officers because with stress they can’t do their job, of protecting the communities and themselves. Stress can cause health problems, as well as, psychological and personal problems (Gaines, 242). A police officer can become “burnout” they would have lost of energy, mental, and physical exhaustion; their minds are somewhere else. There is something that can be done to reduce stress, for example, hang out with people who are not law enforcement that way the chatter isn’t always talking about work, going out for run, seek professional help, seek help from family members, change assignments and so on (Gaines, 259). Police officer should feel like they are less of a person because they seek help, instead they should