Public Safety and Public Relations

Public Relations
Introduction: Public Safety
The aim of the public safety sector is the provision of products and services geared at safeguarding individuals and their property. Over 286,000 individuals are employed in this sector, which can be segregated into the following two key segments: commercial and governmental organizations. Federal, regional, state, and local level governmental public safety organizations agencies have outnumbered commercial ones all through the course of the past decade. Most individuals working in this sector are hired by governmental organizations, including the fire department, police department, and sheriff's department. Some federal level public safety institutions include the CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Border Patrol (Vault, 2020).
The most predominant public safety jobs are connected with the police: police officers, detectives/ investigators, or correctional officers. EMT personnel, highway patrol officials, and firefighters make up another major public safety employee cluster. The majority of private-sector safety personnel include private detectives, security consultants, and security guards. A profession swiftly increasing in popularity is that of computer forensic investigators, owing to alarming rates of growth of cybercrime across the globe (Vault, 2020).
Statement of the Purpose: New York City Police Department (NYPD) - A Risk Analysis
The NYPD constitutes one among America's biggest and earliest municipal police organizations, employing roughly 36,000 officers in addition to 19,000 civilian workers. Instituted in the year 1845, the department is currently in charge of policing a city populated by 8.5 million individuals; its responsibilities include public safety (various forms), law enforcement, emergency response, traffic management, and counterterrorism. Over the last twenty- five years, the NYPD has ensured immense drops in the property as well as violent crime rates in the city, with the city now boasting the lowest major crime rate, on the whole, in the nation's 25 biggest cities (NYPD, 2020).
The department is separated into chief bureaus for administration, enforcement, and investigation. With seventy- seven patrol precincts, its sleuths, and patrol officers can effectively cover the whole city. Additionally, it has a dozen transit districts for policing the subway; it is almost 6-million regular riders as well as 9 PSAs (police service areas) patrol the public housing localities of the city that house over 400,000 individuals. Further, uniformed civilians play the role of traffic safety agents in the busy highways and streets across the city, as well as school safety agents, ensuring the protection of its public schools together with their 1,000,000 student population (NYPD, 2020).
Policepersons carry out various everyday activities entailing diverse risk situations, both physical and financial. Their ultimate effect is felt at both the individual and organizational levels. Risk isn't restricted to individuals related to the department; rather, it extends to external departmental clients or justice seekers as well. State or local departmental hierarchy, employees, and the masses may be likely victims (Achim, 2014).
Policepersons encounter numerous occupational safety and health risks while at work. Averagely, one official dies per annum, no less than 2-3 take their own lives, innumerable contract infectious ailments, several are attacked, and others may be subject to other ailments and injuries jeopardizing their safety and health. Such risks increase with time, owing to greater demands on personnel, occupational stress and shift jobs, criminals' tendency and readiness to attack officials, and greater infectious disease prevalence. Risk reduction is contingent on identifying risk factors, in addition to implementing sound risk prevention plans. Nevertheless, the risk is an inescapable part of the law enforcement job, and officers have to take risks, on occasion, for attaining organizational aims (Achim, 2014).
Description of the Subject: Changes in Public Safety Resources
Organizational public safety resource modifications may guarantee future risk reduction. For providing better long-term public guidance, risk assessment, and risk management, a fixed Scientific Panel or Committee must be established, capable of advising local, state, and national governments on public health emergency management, such as:
· Monitoring of risk factors which may be expected to result in extreme toxicant exposures;
· Maintenance of oversight on emergent trends/extent of illness rates and exposure figures;
· Guidance on recommended effective methods to minimize toxicant exposures; and
· Issuance of prompt recommendations for protection from supplemental exposure and relevant monitoring, as well as for necessary toxicological studies for ascertaining factors that influence disease causation (Lippmann, Cohen & Chen, 2016).
Chronology of the Case Study: Facing Risk and Outcome
The terror attacks of September 11 left an indelible mark on the world and contemporary history. The regular order of policing activities all over the city swiftly came undone with the trade center attack. Several thousand law enforcement workers have instantaneously pulled away from their regular duties and came out onto the streets. Those who were engaged in teaching at the police academy, driving buses to prison, investigating property crime, or verifying fresh recruits' backgrounds, were now required to guard the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, the U.N., tunnels, bridges, and innumerable other spots supervisors considered potential targets. Even cadets at the police academy were assigned the task of directing traffic on the streets (Bornstein, 2005).
The NYPD began working 12-hour shifts to increase the share of officers on the city's streets. According to several officers, this meant that, together with the time taken to travel to work and back, their workday was between 14 and 16 hours. Most complained of sleep deprivation. Besides traffic policing and guarding the city, they had to dig around Ground Zero, find bodies, and help identify them. Further, officers' emotional experience changed following the attacks. Most understandably, the loss of several firefighters', emergency service personnel's, and policepersons' lives meant they all became overnight heroes to the residents of NYC and beyond (Bornstein, 2005). NYPD employees' death toll that day was the second greatest of any police department in the history of the nation, the first greatest being that of Port Authority policepersons (on that very fateful day) (Homeland Security, 2005).
Following the tragedy, several health-connected risks were noted. Buyantseva and coworkers' (2007) study of 1,588 NYPD officers found instances of light, moderate, and heavy WTC Dust exposure on post-9/11 allocated duties. Before the attack, a 4.8 percent cough prevalence was noted as compared to the post-9/11 statistic of 43.5 percent. The researchers revealed a growth in OR (odds ratio), as well as gender- and race- adjusted OR for health interviews and follow-up chronic-cough assessment via the telephone. Among officials without any respiratory issues before the attacks, a significant increase was observed in early-onset persistent (p = 0.04) and resolved (p = 0.02) cough, which increased by exposure group.
Wisnivesky and colleagues (2011) describe a cluster of over 50,000 9/11 recovery and rescue workers, reporting on rates of psychological and physical ailments in the nine years following the attack, studying their link to occupational exposure, and quantifying the psychological and physical health comorbidities. The authors collected information from a total of 27,449 WTC Screening, Monitoring, and Treatment Program participants. Research subjects included policepersons, firefighters, and municipal and construction sector employees. Nine-year cumulative asthma rate stood at 27.6 percent, GERD at 39.3 percent, and sinusitis at 42.3 percent. Among policepersons, the cumulative depression rate stood at 7.0 percent, panic disorder at 8.4 percent, and PTSD at 9.3 percent. Among other recovery and rescue personnel, the cumulative depression rate stood at 27.5 percent, panic disorder at 21.2 percent, and PTSD at 31.9 percent. Nine-year cumulative spirometric abnormality rate was 41.8 percent, with 75 percent of them being low FVC. Personnel experiencing the highest WTC exposure displayed the highest disorder rates. Significant comorbidities were noted within as well as between psychological and physical ailments. Hence, nine years later, recovery and rescue personnel continued displaying a considerable burden of psychological and physical health issues.
Lessons Learned
Risk Management
In occupational safety and health spectrum, risk management denotes a systematic method whereby management practices, policies, and methods are employed in the identification of workplace threats, evaluating risks linked to them, ascertaining the right control measures for those risks, and monitoring and reviewing the established process of risk management for its effectiveness in creating a healthy, safe work environment (OHS, 2008).
The NYPD's Risk Management Bureau (RMB) is in charge of risk evaluation as well as management. This Bureau evaluates the workplace performance of officials from the department, identifying those potentially requiring supervision or additional training. Implementing an information-driven strategy, taking data from lawsuits, internal probes, and complaints of misbehavior can aid the department in swiftly monitoring likely misconduct patterns and taking the required corrective action under a timely intervention system. Moreover, the Bureau evaluates whether or not departmental policies and training work or require some sort of revision. It collaborates with the inspector general of the city and other governmental organizations for improving the community and policing relations (NYPD, 2020).
Proposed changes in the management plan: Police activity exercise entails certain negative impacts on an individual's health; this field teems with work conditions, which result in increased health stressors, including life-threatening scenarios. The most susceptible age group is 40 to 55 years (susceptibility peaks from 45 to 50 years). To address the issue of poor health services to police officials, guards, and other law enforcement workers, there is a dire, current need to implement collective measures and solutions to protect them and prevent health problems from developing among them.
Occupational safety and health ought to be prioritized when it comes to the law enforcement sector. Without sound occupational safety and health initiatives in place, departments might find themselves faced with liability lawsuits. Physically fit law enforcement officers might, for instance, display a greater likelihood of exerting less force if encountering a scenario with the potential for the use of excessive force. NYPD's risk management strategy needs to include a sound occupational safety and health initiative necessarily. Having a sound occupational safety and health initiative in place may help improve relationships between the department and the community it serves.
Furthermore, police officer conduct can affect overall trust and police-community dealings. Physically and mentally fit police officers might further display a lower likelihood of drawing complaints; besides, stress reduction initiatives can facilitate more positive collaborations between the police and the community. The majority of police departments already have certain occupational safety and health elements; the presence of some elements, at the very least, is more crucial than having them all in a single place. Sound health protection and personnel safety risk management constitute a decisive element in the reduction of the intensity and degree of work-linked ailments and injuries. Efficient management tackles every work-linked hazard, including hazards, which might result due to any changes in work practices or conditions. Lastly, it deals with whether hazards are governed by governmental standards or not (Achim, 2014).
Conclusion
Occupational risk evaluation ought to encompass all workstations and activities within the police department and consider all work-related elements, including employees, the work environment, responsibilities, and work equipment. Occupational risk evaluation recommends personnel participation and, wherever appropriate, the participation of their representatives in specific responsibilities for workplace safety and health, or the safety and health work committee (Achim, 2014).
References
Achim, A. C. (2014). Risk management issues in policing: from safety risks faced by law enforcement agents to occupational health. Procedia Economics and Finance, 15, 1671-1676.
Bornstein, A. (2005). Antiterrorist policing in New York City after 9/11: Comparing perspectives on a complex process. Human Organization, 64(1), 52-61. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/44127004?seq=1
Buyantseva, L. V., Tulchinsky, M., Kapalka, G. M., Chinchilli, V. M., Qian, Z., Gillio, R., et al. (2007). Evolution of lower respiratory symptoms in New York police officers after 9/11: A prospective longitudinal study. J Occup Environ Med, 49, 310–17.
Homeland Security. (2005). Grand reform: The faster and smarter funding for first responders. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Lippmann, M., Cohen, M. D., & Chen, L-C. (2015). Health effects of World Trade Center (WTC) Dust: An unprecedented disaster with inadequate risk management. Crit Rev Toxicol, 45(6), 492-530. DOI: 10.3109/10408444.2015.1044601
NYPD. (2020). About NYPD. Retrieved from https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/about/about-nypd/about-nypd-landing.page
OHS. (2008). Occupational Health and Safety Code of Practice. Australian Government.
Vault. (2020). Overview. Retrieved from https://www.vault.com/industries-professions/industries/public-safety
Wisnivesky, J. P., Teitelbaum, S. L., Todd, A. C., Boffetta, P., Crane, M., Crowley, L., et al. (2011). Persistence of multiple illnesses in World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers: A cohort study. Lancet, 378, 888–97.