Stress in Policing

Sources, consequences and interventions

Ronald J. Burke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317049111
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Stress in policing remains a serious concern for individual officers, their families, their organizations and society at large. As an editor of the Psychological and Behavioural Aspects of Risk series, Ronald J. Burke brings together the latest research findings and intervention strategies, shown to be effective, by an international group of experts.

The contributors comprise of a group of high profile researchers and writers who are experts in their respective fields. This edited collection addresses such issues as:

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• The increased risk of international terrorism

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• Racial profiling

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• Police Culture

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• Police integrity

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• Police suicide

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• Inadequate police training

The work of police officers exposes them to sources of stress that increase several risks in terms of their psychological and physical health, their family relationships, physical injuries, emotional trauma, ambiguity about their roles in society. Shift work, and undercover work add additional burdens to officers and their families. Police work also places risks on the communities in which officers serve in terms of officers being inadequately trained to deal with mentally ill citizens.

Part 1

Introduction

1 Stress in policing

An overview¹

Ronald J. Burke

It probably won’t be a bullet that strikes an officer down, but the effects of chronic stress.

Sergeant Robin Klein, Long Beach California Police Department

Police forces are organizations staffed by men and women, sworn officers and civilians, who provide police services to their communities. Some officers perform heroically: the first responder to a possible child drowning, Officer Vinilla King, found the three-year-old unconscious and not breathing. She performed CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, bringing the child back to life; Officer Jesse Kidder refused to shoot a man wanted for the killing of his best friend and his fiancé, though the suspect kept asking the offer to shoot him; and Police officer Clifford Peterson was honored for saving the life of a man intending to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge in Toronto on December 2013. There are also “bad guys” out there: Shannon Miles, on August 28, 2015, approached an unsuspecting officer filling up his police car at a gas station and shot and killed him (Toronto Star, 2015). Miles had a lengthy criminal record. The two had never met. The shooting was termed an assassination by some.

While most police officers and civilian employees perform admirably, there are others, hopefully a small number, who do not. Individuals with “human frailties” exist in all organizations. A 30-year veteran of the Peel Regional Police Force, just outside Toronto, Craig Wattier, has recently been charged with child pornography (Gilllis and Deschamps, 2015). Our intention in this collection is not to “trash” police officers and police forces. Police officers, unlike employees of most other organizations, have unique powers invested in them and carry weapons. Our hope is to reduce risk to police officers and the citizens they serve by identifying areas of concern and suggesting possible remedies to address them.

This opening chapter, of necessity being broad and wide-ranging in identifying risks to both officers and their forces and citizens in their communities, reviews issues related to sources of stress in policing, consequences of stress, and potential interventions to reduce the prevalence and negative impacts of police stress.

Waters and Ussery (2007) briefly reviewed the history of police stress research including causes, symptoms, and potentially useful interventions consistent with the theme of this collection. Here is a sample of some of their conclusions.

• The incidence of police stress continues to escalate and affect officers and their families.

• There was a reluctance of officers to use available services due to the values of the police culture.

• The physical health of officers seemed to deteriorate over time.

• Officers do face stressful events.

• There was high rate of domestic violence in police families, stress-related and control-related.

• There was high divorce rate in police families.

• Police families worry about dangers facing police officers.

• Police officers have a high rate of suicide.

The picture, almost a decade later, has not improved.

Risks to police officers, police organizations, citizens, and communities

Yes there are “bad people” out there. A man with a penchant for hate crimes and bullying others, Norman Radditz, shot and killed Daniel Woodall (aged 35 and a married father of two young children), one of a small group of officers who had come to arrest him (Wittmeier and Pruden, 2015). A second officer was wounded and survived. Raddatz was found dead, a suicide, in the basement of his house, which was demolished by a fire he may have set.

There are risks that police officers face: being shot and killed, being physically assaulted, being hurt or killed in a car crash, and being charged with an assault or a complaint. There are also risks to citizens: being physically assaulted, being shot or killed, being charged with a crime based on fabricated evidence, being harassed as a result of racial profiling, and being given a ticket to fill a quota. New York City paid almost $6 million in July 2015 to the family of Eric Garner, who died from strangulation by police officers while being arrested.

A small number of police officers engage in misconduct, typically in their early career stages. Thus early identification of such risks is important. Police managers then need to have better information (quality and quantity) and make better use of this information. This involves more police monitoring of officers, early identification of performance problems and concerns, and addressing these via training, coaching, and discipline. These will be challenging since most police officers, while working, are not directly observed and there is a gap between “street cops” and “management cops.”

Worden et al. (2014) focus on risk assessment and risk management of police misconduct. Police misconduct includes excessive use of force, illegal search and seizures, bias in police stops (racial profiling), sexual harassment, lying on the witness stand, theft, and other unprofessional misconduct. They conclude, however, that the tools used to determine risks of misconduct fall short, as they use limited information of questionable value and the models using these tools need improvement. Police managers need to improve the quality and quantity of data they use and make better use of these data.

Public opinion and satisfaction with law enforcement

The public generally holds positive views about the police and police forces. Toronto’s retiring Police Chief, Bill Blair, left office in the spring of 2015 with a high Toronto citizen approval rating. Sixty-one percent of Torontonians in a recent survey approved of his performance (Rider, 2015).

Trust and confidence in police organizations

Trust and confidence in the police encourage greater citizen involvement in determining the nature of police services provided to one’s community, in making police organizations more accountable and responsive to their communities, and in increasing citizen compliance and cooperation with police officers and with laws (Jackson and Bradford, 2010).

Trust in police organizations is diminished when police investigate police, and no officers are found “guilty” (Hays and Long, 2014). Even when juries investigate the police, they get treated differently from the average citizen. Waddington (2010) writes that standards for convicting a police officer for an offense are higher than those used for other cases. He suggests that juries realize that policing is a “dirty business and one that sometimes leaves stains on one’s hands.” In too many cases, investigative journalists end up reporting what really happened. Polling data in Canada have shown significant declines in public trust in the police over the past decade. Police organizations need the support and cooperation of citizens if they are to function effectively. This means creating a positive image in the eyes of the public. This requires always treating citizens with respect, regardless of the situation.

In addition, police officers being investigated for wrongdoing, similar to employees in other occupations, are put on paid suspension. One Ontario officer was paid almost $350,000 over three years before retiring. He thanked his force for the opportunity he was given to travel, take courses, play golf, and sit at home during this time (Ferreira, 2015a). The citizens of Ontario pay $13,000 a day to suspended police officers (Ferreira, 2015b); one officer receiving over $600,000 while under suspension. The vast majority of officers will return to their jobs.

The police culture

Police organizations are paramilitary organizations; they have a “macho” culture, in which spending time with other officers following a shift is common. Authority and power are vested in police officers as representatives of their governments; they have guns, tasers, batons, handcuffs, radios, back-up help, and uniforms. They take charge, give orders, and limit citizen freedoms; they can stop and search, and make arrests. But police learn quickly that many citizens dislike their police symbols and behaviors. Police officers divide their world in to “us” and “them”(everyone else) and believe that only other officers can understand them. There is also a stigma attached to admitting difficulties and problems and seeking help. In addition, there is often conflict in the police sub-culture between the official norms and values of policing and actual police behavior, a tension between “street cops” and “management cops” (Reuss-Ianni, 1983; Skolnick and Fyfe, 1996).

Toch (2008: 61) describes police organizations as having “hyper-bureaucratic military organizational attributes – those of formal rank, formal authority and a chain of unquestioned and unquestioning command.” Police organizations are described as militaristic and overly bureaucratic (rank-based authority, command and control, top-down decision-making, formal rules and procedures, and army-style uniforms). Police culture embodies the following characteristics: solidarity, authoritarianism, suspicion, conservatism, cynicism, and bias. These cultural values can contribute to policing problems such as excessive use of force, racism, sexism, corruption, and inefficiencies.

Van Maanen (1978) found that officers grouped citizens into three categories: “suspicious persons”—people likely to or who may have already committed a crime; “assholes”—people who disrespect the police or insult them; and “know nothings”— people who ask police for assistance. Loftus (2010), using ethnographic research in a UK police force, found that long-held views on the nature of police occupational culture were still prevalent. He attributed this continuity to the fact that basic processes and fundamentals of the police role have not changed.

Police cynicism

Police work has been associated with high levels of officer cynicism. Niederhoffer (1967), in his pioneering study of New York City police officers, placed a lot of emphasis on levels of cynicism among police officers. Increases in levels of police cynicism have been linked with officer perceptions of the ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system, poor management in their forces, boredom on the job, disappointment with the quality of their work experiences, excessive amounts of paperwork, the influence of their colleagues, the police culture and forging bonds of unity and solidarity, being cut off from the public (“he/us versus them” mentality), and the lack of relevant training.

Hickman et al. (2004), in a study of 499 Philadelphia police officers, found that cynicism increased with years of police service, and officers scoring higher on cynicism also had more departmental disciplinary charges.

Police violence

Former US tennis star, James Blake, who is black, was thrown to the ground and handcuffed by a white police officer, James Frascatore, on Wednesday September 9, while standing in front of his New York City (NYC) hotel. Mayor deBlazio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton apologized to Blake for the incident of mistaken identity. Frascatore has had multiple complaints raised against him in the past, including being sued four times for excessive use of force. Frascatore is now on desk duty. In a different case, a financial settlement was reached with the family of Walter Scott, who was shot by a white police officer in North Charleston, South Carolina (Toronto Star, 2015b). Scott was unarmed. The city agreed to pay the family $6.5million. The officer, Michael Slager, was charged with murder in June 2015. Two Louisiana police officers, Derrick Stafford and Norris Greenhouse, have been charged with murder in the shooting death of an autistic child on November 7, 2015 while attempting to arrest the boy’s father (Kunzleman, 2015).

A white Chicago police officer, Jason Van dyke, was charged with the murder of a 17-year-old black male, Laquan Mcdonald. McDonald was shot 16 times (Babwin and Keyser, 2015). Unnamed officers provided written reports of the shooting that were different from what was shown on the video. Protests broke out in Chicago when a video of the shooting was released. Van Dyke was previously charged with 18 civilian complaints over his 14 years on the force, several for the use of excessive force. One person he had arrested was later awarded $350,000 in damages (Babwin, 2015a). The Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, fired his Police superintendent, Gary McCarthy, on December 1 despite saying he was doing a good job in reducing levels of crime (Babwin, 2015b). Citizen protests following the release of long-suppressed videos of this shooting made McCarthy a “distraction.” Emanuel created a task force on police accountability, due to report back to him in March 2016, as well as authorizing the greater use of body cameras.

A Chicago police officer shot and killed an emotionally disturbed young man, as well as an innocent woman bystander, on December 26, 2015; both victims were black. Police acknowledged that the shooting of the second person was an accident (a mistake). The race of the officer firing the shots was not made public. Mayor Emanuel indicated on December 27 that all Chicago officers would now be trained on how to deal with a person having mental health problems – a little late unfortunately (Tarm, 2015).

Lerch and Mieczkowski (2009) reviewed the literature on violent police behavior. We do not know the frequency of “police brutality” and “police violence”. It seems however that police violence and brutality are relatively rare. Female officers are less likely to engage in violent behavior. Younger black citizens in the US are more likely to be targets of police violence, as are males more generally. Force is more likely to be used when citizens disrespect officers or when a minor offence escalates.

Kop and Euwema (2001), in a sample of Dutch police officers, reported that those indicating higher levels of occupational stress engaged in more use of force. Ingram et al. (2014)—based on data from 766 patrol officers and 146 patrol sergeants—found that the way sergeants viewed the use of lethal force policies, and the views of top management and their levels of support for them, influenced patrol officers’ views of these policies.

Lerch and Mieczkowski (2009) offer suggestions for reducing levels of violent police behavior. These include the creation of civilian police review boards, the introduction of community-based policing, the use of early warning systems to collect and monitor citizen complaints as well as fellow-officer complaints (typically from supervisors), the hiring of more female officers, police leadership actively opposing police violence by taking this concern seriously, disciplining “guilty” officers with penalties, and the use of training sessions. De-escalating rather than escalating seems to make more sense. The Globe and Mail (2014) suggests: (1) disarming some police officers, as they do in the UK (most UK police do not carry guns); (2) pu...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Stress in Policing
• Psychological and Behavioural Aspects of Risk
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Introduction
• Part II Sources of Police Stress
• Part III Consequences of Stress in Policing
• Part IV Reducing Levels of Police Misconduct
• Part V Coping Interventions to Address Stress in Policing
• Part VI Cultural-Level Interventions to Address Stress in Policing
• Index