Stress Management in Police Work

Stress Management in Police Work

When it comes to stress management in police work, the biggest issue is burnout. There are several things that relate to the amount of burnout that the law enforcement officer experiences. Their age, their gender, their marital status, and the length of time that they have been in the profession all have been suggested to correlate to the levels of burnout that they experience. These levels have been suggested as being anywhere from moderate to high, depending on who is conducting the study and where in the country they are taking their sample from (Jenkins & Maslach, 1994; Kreitner, Sova, Wood, Friedman, & Reif, 1985).

It is important to note that law enforcement officers in a small town with very little crime or problems will often have a much lower degree of burnout than officers in a large city with a very high crime rate. This stands to reason, as the officers in the large city will be under much more heightened and sustained stress due to where they work than their counterparts in the small town where crime is very low (Jackson & Maslach, 1982). There are times when busy cities are quite and times when quiet cities are busy, but in general there are more crimes in larger areas. Police officers that work in inner-city neighborhoods all of the time are especially susceptible to burnout because they often see many things that upset them and they do not always have a good outlet for the emotions that they feel when they see these things (Chandler & Jones, 1979).

The amount of experience that a police officer had and their age were confirmed as having a relationship to burnout when they were examined by other studies. Marital status and whether or not the officer had children were not found to be significant variables. The level of education that the officer had attained was also found not to be significant in predicting whether that individual would experience job burnout. It did appear, though, that attitude was definitely related to burnout. Officers that had a cynical or pessimistic attitude going into their profession were much more likely to experience burnout sooner than those that went into their profession with a positive and eager attitude (Chandler & Jones, 1979).

It would appear, however, that most police officers end up with that cynical type of attitude, even if they do not start out that way. They may be cynical toward their government or other authority figures, or they may be cynical about their abilities to do anything about the amount of crime and difficulty that they see every day (Jackson & Maslach, 1982). Either way, many officers end up with cynical opinions about various things and this does not help them to do better toward helping others that might need their services (Chandler & Jones, 1979).

It has also been hypothesized, however, that the detachment and cynicism that many officers face does not come necessarily from burnout, but rather simply comes with the job. This theory indicates that, while cynicism is certainly one component of burnout, it is something that is unique to burnout in the law enforcement officer, instead of something that can be expected in various other professions (Adlam, 1982).

Depending on who is conducting the study, there have been several suggested reasons for this cynicism that develops in police. According to some, it is because officers cannot always handle things the way that they would like to because authority holds them back (Chandler & Jones, 1979). In other words, they cannot beat up someone who richly deserves it, because that would be police brutality, which is illegal (Jenkins & Maslach, 1994).