POLICE STRESS AND EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS
"Far from worrying when a crisis happens, a man should worry when it does not" (Richard Nixon)

    It has long been assumed that police work is the world's most stressful occupation.  However, comparative studies of occupational stress have revealed that other occupations, such as business, emergency medical services, and correctional work are more stressful than policing (Patterson 1992).  Nevertheless, the symptoms of police stress may be different.  For one thing, the effects are usually delayed, more closely resembling the symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) or burnout (sometimes called cumulative stress reaction).  Burnout is a disease of overcommitment and is a more reversible condition than stress.  The symptoms appear one day from "out of the blue" in officers who have not shown even the slightest early warning sign.  Stress can have that effect, but not often.  Research has shown that officers with six to ten years of service usually have the highest mean stressor scores, and that this can sometimes be seen coming (Violanti & Aron 1995).

    One of the things that is often thought different about police stress is the phenomenon of "burst stress" which means that there is no steady stressor.  Officers go from periods of complete calm to periods of high activity in sudden bursts, much like a military "hurry up and wait" syndrome.  The Heavy Badge web site has a good explanation of burst stress, and one of the first scholars to draw attention to it was W. Clinton Terry (1985) who coined the term "police stress syndrome" which has come to characterize police stress as special and not due to danger, insecurity, or job dissatisfaction like normal job stress. Other have referred to police stress as the "police paradox" (Cullen et. al. 1983) because both the safe and unsafe aspects of the job combine to produce the symptoms.

    Another thing different about police stress (and often thought common to criminal justice work in general) is the fact that good stress is just as bad, if not worse, than bad stress. Stress consists of eustress (good stress) and distress (bad stress), according to the founder (Selye 1975) of the General Adaptation Syndrome, but we know as little about eustress today as when the term was invented.  It's hard for starving students to imagine, but in public service work, one sometimes feels like they don't deserve their salary, that raise, that promotion, that new job; and the supposedly good things about the work.  High points in life can turn into disasters. You feel guilty, you party, you spend, you gamble, you drink, you go into more debt, and these are the times when you start looking to fool around.  Promotion is difficult because you have to discipline your buddies, for example.

    In middle management, stress comes from all sides, from unsupportive superiors above and from recalcitrant subordinates below.  There is a pervasive feeling of lack of control over one's work in middle management.  There is some evidence that alcoholism is associated with middle management stress, although there's more evidence that the older the officer, the more likely the alcoholism.  FTO's (Field Training Officers) may experience the most stress under the burden of being both trainer and role model for a never-ending stream of recruits.  Detectives experience stress from not having secretaries, working odd hours, seeing the criminal justice system act too lenient, and the pressure towards solving cases quickly.  Top executives suffer stress from budgeting deadlines, program development, and resolving complaints.  Crank et. al. (1993) found that sheriffs are consistently under more stress than police chiefs.  The lower the level of education for a top executive, the greater the stress.

    Female and minority officers experience unique stress.  Females must deal with the sexual harassment, public stereotypes, and need to gain acceptance from male officers.  Minorities must deal with the racial prejudice and their minority group's dislike for police officers, and, by association, them (a double whammy effect).  Even the impact of community policing is stressful, most notably on those who feel forced to perform certain tasks because of their gender or ethnicity, or those at the sergeant rank (Lord 1996), an interesting finding indeed.

    The families of police officers also suffer stress, a kind of vicarious occupational stress.  The unpredictability, shiftwork, fear (of death, injury, kidnapping), isolation, and low pay all cause family problems.  Children of officers are held to higher standards by the community, spouses are often at odds in figuring out how to communicate with one another, and both groups must deflect the never-ending stream of public inquiry whenever the police department is in the news.  Relationships in police families are often distant and alienative (NIJ 1991).

THE IMPACT OF STRESS

    Stress reactions vary by characteristics of the personality, social support structure, life experiences, years of service, level of education, use of coping strategies, the intensity of the stressful event, and any unique features of the organization. A serious problem is that many police departments view police stress as an employee problem, not an organizational problem. Rarely is the bureaucraticized, paramilitary structure of the organization suspected of being the problem, although it probably is, and indeed, internal, departmental stressors are the most aggravating.

    Many police stress reactions often resemble the stage of full-blown cynicism (Niederhoffer 1969). There are three (3) reactions that have received the most attention, and it should be noted that many of these "findings" have, over the years, been disputed as overblown and possibly even myths:

• Suicide -- Police officers kill themselves at a rate six times greater than in the general population, and police officers kill themselves at a rate 8.3 times greater than those who die at the hands of criminals (Violanti 1996). Although you often don't see it coming and there's usually no history of counseling beforehand, police suicides, via psychological autopsies, have been linked to diagnosable mental disorders, most often involving depression, alcohol, or drug abuse. It seems to be a phenomenon frequently restricted to urban police officers.
• Alcoholism -- The rates are high possibly because of the stigma associated with illegal drugs, meaning that drugs other than alcohol are avoided. Older officers have the highest rates, and there is significant female and minority involvement. Several studies conducted in the 1970's looked at drinking on duty as an indicator of alcoholism, and produced some frightening figures, from Reiss' 25% to Van Raalte's 67%. Other studies have looked at the "cop ulcer" rate, estimated at 30%, and fitness and dietary habits of officers. More recent studies have looked at drug use and abuse.
• Infidelity -- Perhaps the only occupation to have its infidelity rates studied, police work lends itself to many temptations and opportunities in this regard, but there are few good rate estimates. There is a literature on police divorce which has cited some alarming figures (1:10 suceed), but again, much of this may be myth more than odds.  More recent studies have looked at how the phenomenon is related to shiftwork, and when in the police career it usually happens.

The stressors of police work have also been the subject of much effort at categorization; for example:

• Stressors Internal to the Police Organization: Poor Supervision (too lenient/too tough); Absence of Upward Mobility; Absence of an Extrinsic Reward System; Offensive (annoying & silly) Policies and Procedures; Excessive Paperwork; and Poor Equipment.
• Stressors External to the Police Organization: Absence of Career Development & Lateral Entry; Jurisdictional Turf Battles; an Ineffective Criminal Justice System; Biased Press; Minority Attitudes; Derogatory Remarks; Political Interference; and Lack of Community Resources/Referral Agencies.
• Stressors Connected with Police Work: Role Conflict and Strain; Rotating Shiftwork; Fear & Danger; Relinquishing Cases to the Detective Division; Victim Pain & Anguish; and Employee Review Boards.

    Stress tends to magnify whatever personality disorders were pre-existing within the individual.  Post (2004), for example, says that those with a touch of narcissism will likely become overconfident, those with a touch of obsessive-compulsiveness will likely become overly concerned with hierarchical structure, and those with a touch of paranoia will likely become more than hypersensitive.  A full-blown personality disorder is, and ought to be, a disqualifier for police work.  Stress-induced reactions of this sort typically make someone suffering from it incapable of exercising good leadership. 

    There are some common effects of stress on cognitive functioning that do not go as far as exacerbating personality disorder.  These reactions are dangerous, nonetheless, and consist of the following overarching patterns identified by Janis (1989):

• truncated time span -- attention becomes devoted to the immediate; long-term is neglected

• following familiar scripts -- viewing the present in terms of the past; seeking familiar patterns

• perceived need for decisional closure -- things must be decided once and for all, right now

• irrational procrastination -- things that could be counted on before to get done are put off

• cognitive rigidity -- a fixed mindset not open to new information; avoidance of complex alternatives

• tendency to "bolster" -- tendency to upgrade the good about favored courses of action

• diminished creativity -- inability to come up with novel solutions

• fundamental attribution bias -- tendency to see other's actions as having evil motives

• actor-observer discrepancy -- tendency to see external events as the result of one's own making

    It is important to note that there is a difference between employee discipline and employee punishment, and that employee assistance is altogether different. It is a type of help aimed at the relief of stress in average, normal, healthy, productive workers at risk of developing an unresolvable, degenerative mental disorder. It bears some resemblance to psychological fitness testing, but is more than that. The history of employee assistance programs is informative:

• Traditional Programs -- (1950 era) The supervisory attitude was to (1) ignore it; (2) assign the employee to a desk job; (3) refer the employee to Alcoholic's Anonymous; or (4) refer the employee to the Chaplain. Unfortunately, most paper-pushing desk jobs these days are being taken over by civilians.
• EAP Officers -- (1960 era) A staff person, usually the Public Information Officer, would be in charge of granting employees, who requested it, a sick leave with no questions asked (and no pay while on leave). The employee assistance person would refer the officer to some outside mental health agency or counselor.
• In-House Stress Units -- (1970 era) A staff person, usually in conjunction with a union official, would meet with the employee to attempt some resolution, mediation, or arbitration of the problem. The idea was to turn stressed employees into change agents. Sometimes, an outside counselor would be brought in, but this was usually for debriefing purposes after some major incident. Often, the unit would also be responsible for conducting stress seminars within the department, but again, this was sometimes contracted out. Visit this site for a review of what Police Psychologists have recommended.
• Ministry Programs -- (1980 era) Employees would be assigned/referred to a victim survivor group, a police officer support group of some kind like Concerns of Police Survivors, a chaplain's group, a church-sponsored retreat, or some other kind of religion-, group-based program. Rarely were these programs used exclusively, but the notion of pastoral counseling was something that caught on during this time period.
• Critical Incident Stress Debriefing or CISD -- (1990 era) Critical incidents include line-of-duty deaths, suicide of a co-worker, death of a child, failed rescue attempts, mass casualty incidents, and where victim is known to responder. A critical incident is presumed to be a precursor for PTSS if not responded to within 24-48 hours by a debriefing team usually consisting of one mental health professional or a member of the clergy and one to three peer support personnel. Visit this site for a good overview of what CISD is all about.

    Administrators should also consider expanding the psychological testing and screening program, if they have one. Regular mental as well as physical exams go a long way in maintaining a healthy organization. Police executives should demand better psychometric tests, ones tailored specifically to police work, not ones requiring extensive interpretation to fitness for police work. Periodic psychological fitness-for-duty evaluations are important. Some departments have a police psychologist for this; others contract out or share resources with another agency. Often, a local college or university has someone willing to provide testing services. Confidentiality is of utmost importance in this regard as it is with any employee assistance program, but the programs should be set up to avoid any injury to "macho" images when seeking help. Other things a police administrator might do include:

• Establishing employee athletic intramural events
• Devising other "fun" activities for employees, picnics, etc.
• Give recognition in the form of distinctive badges or patches, money, or media publicity
• Allow little or no shift/beat rotation
• Require complete retraining every five years
• Provide second career/softer job retraining for retirement planning

    Stress, like crisis, is ultimately a matter of values, and often related to collective values.  Of course, different personalities exist which are affected by stress in different ways, but the basic idea of a "stressor" can be said to be quite similar to the idea of a "threat" and specifically, a perceived threat to values.  It is the perception which matters.  Along these lines, perhaps the most promising remedy for police stress is to reinforce police values.  

INTERNET RESOURCES
Hal Brown's PoliceStressLine
Central Florida Police Stress Unit
Oklahoma City Peer Support Program
South Carolina's Another Day Ministries
National Center for Police Officers with PTSD
Gene Sanders: Police Psychologist.

PRINTED RESOURCES
Crank, J., J. Hewitt, B. Regoli & R. Culbertson. (1993). "An Assessment of Work Stress among Police Executives" Journal of Criminal Justice 21:310-21.
Cullen, F., B. Link, L. Travis & T. Lemming. (1983). "Paradox in Policing: A Note on Perceptions of Danger" Journal of Police Science and Administration 11:457-62.
Heiman, M. (1975). "Police Suicide" Journal of Police Science and Administration 3:267-73.
Janis, I. (1989). Crucial Decisions. NY: Free Press.
Kroes, W. (1976). Society's Victim, The Policeman: An Analysis of Job Stress in Policing. Springfield: C. Thomas.
Lord, V. (1996). "An Impact of Community Policing: Reported Stressors, Social Support, and Strain among Police Officers in a Changing Police Department" Journal of Criminal Justice 24:503-22.
Mitchell, J. & G. Everly. (1993). Critical Incident Stress Debriefing: An Operations Manual. Ellicott City: Chevron.
National Institute of Justice. (1991). On the Front Lines: Police Stress & Family Well-Being. Wash DC:US GPO.
Niederhoffer, A. (1969). Behind the Shield. New York: Doubleday.
Patterson, B. (1992). "Job Experience and Perceived Job Stress among Police, Correctional, and Probation/Parole Officers" Journal of Criminal Justice and Behavior 19:260-85.
Post, J. (2004). Leaders and their Followers in a Dangerous World. NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
Selye, H. (1975). Stress Without Distress. New York: Lippincott.
Terry, W. Clinton. (1985). Policing Society. New York: Wiley.
Violanti, J. & F. Aron. (1995). "Police Stressors: Variations in Perceptions among Police Personnel" Journal of Criminal Justice 23:280-91.
Violanti, J. (1996). Police Suicide: Epidemic in Blue. Springfield: C. Thomas.

Last updated: Oct 27, 2006
Not an official webpage of APSU, copyright restrictions apply, see Megalinks in Criminal Justice
O'Connor, T.  (Date of Last Update at bottom of page). In Part of web cited (Windows name for file at top of browser), MegaLinks in Criminal Justice. Retrieved from http://www.apsu.edu/oconnort/rest of URL accessed on today's date