Police Officers Injuries - Essay Example

Police Officers Injuries related to work and prevention programs Introduction The police officers’ department is a unique career in every country, which entails the involved personnel to interact with a wide range of different people under unpredictable conditions. Most researches have concluded that law enforcement officers face many challenges and work under high risk of injuries. Such injuries are from motor vehicle crashes, firearms, as well as other traumatic events such as fighting with terrorist groups (Ball 45). Additionally, a large number of police officer receives injuries or even end up losing their lives due to automobile crashes. This is mainly evidence with patrol police officers who receive injuries or meet their deaths when they are outside their patrol vehicles. Arguably, few professionals experience the injury threats that police officers face during their careers. Health workplace is the key to any effective and successful law enforcement department. The department of police should understand that healthy police officers who work under safety and healthy workplaces are able to better perform their duties and serve the community effectively. The department executives must ensure that police agencies support the police officers’ safety and healthy. For, instance, the department of police should incorporate adequate measures to protect the employees from the adverse threats, which they face during their operations (Gundersen and Robert 62). Police executives should ask several questions to ensure the police officers’ wellbeing is fully protected (Ball 47). For example, what are the basic health and safety measures should the police department ensures to its employees? During large-scale epidemics, such as fighting against a terrorist group, which are the appropriate safety and health measures to ensure the police officers are healthy and are able to undertake their duties? What benefits should the police officers derive from the health and safety program? Thesis statement This essay aims at explaining the types of injuries, police officers face during the line of duty and the appropriate safety and health programs that police department should implement (Gundersen and Robert 65). The paper also purports to provide some considerations for strengthening the current safety and health programs. This document begins with explaining the various types of injuries, police officers face related to their duties (Ball 49). It further proposes several health and safety programs that police departments should implement and explaining their benefits and stressing that it is only through the implementation of these programs that police officers will work under safe and health workforces. The paper then explains how the police department should use these programs for the police officers health during an emergency pandemic such as influenza. This guide concludes by explaining the obstacles that police department encounter while implementing these safety programs and recommends on how to overcome these challenges. Key sources of police officer injuries i. Officer gunfire injuries and deaths A large number of police officers receive severe injuries while in their lines of duty from firearms. Many of the police officers who involve in firearms also end up losing their lives. This intentional killing and injury of police officers bring negative impacts to the community they serve, the police agency, and highly to the officers’ families. While any injury or loss of life during violence is tragic, the situations under which police officers get injured while serving and protecting their country is mainly devastating. This serves as a stark reminder to all other police officers serving in the department (Ball 50). In order to end these challenges, police agencies should implement several measures. Training police officers in critical thinking when working under such situations would highly improve their ability to avoid accidental deaths and injuries. Police departments should also consider the way in which traffic police officers should conduct traffic stops. Additionally, development of communication strategies would add value to police protection since key roles and tactics need early communication (Gundersen and Robert 67). ii. Vehicle operation For many years, deaths and injuries because of traffic crashes have been a great problem affecting police officers. Police officers drive in any condition and should be able carry out various activities even when their vehicles are still in motion. For instance, when on patrol, police officers must mind on the computers, radio calls, telephone calls, license plate readers, and many other tasks while at the same time police officers must observe their surroundings (Gundersen and Robert 68). Under these critical conditions, which police officer drives, a crash is possible. Although there are some police officers who rarely involve in such crashes, some are unable to avoid these accidents (Ball 54). In addition, police officers are also supposed to perform several tasks while their vehicles in motion, for instance, they are fighting with gangsters or terrorist groups. Such conditions leave a large number of police officers with severe injuries and many others lose their lives. In order to reduce these incidents, police officers should undergo thorough driver training and an officer who fails to pass the training should not have any permission to take part in driving. This training should include emergency driving training. Police agencies should also emphasize on wearing seat belts while driving. Risk management Risk management programs remain as policy emphasized by local government organizations for many years. The purpose of risk management programs is to reduce employees’ exposure to injury risks. Although local government has several risk management programs, the police officer agencies do not have their own risk management programs (Gundersen and Robert 75). This has contributed to the increased number of police officers who face injuries while on the line of duty. Researches indicate that, most police officer agencies use risk management program as a tool for liability control in their organizations (Ball 57). Police agencies should address risk management programs from several perspectives such as risk to police officers, risk to public, damage to the organization, risk to the organization, and risk to civil rights. Police department bosses should be able to define, divide, distribute, and perform the entire work of reducing harm to police officers. Programs we can implement to reduce and prevent these incidents i. Physical fitness programs for law Enforcement Officers It should not surprise many people that physical fitness can improve the long-term health of police officers. Researches show that people who fail to do regular physical fitness exercises have prone to high risk of injuries such as back injuries. Police departments should implement physical and fitness programs for the police officers (Gundersen and Robert 77). This is because regular physical exercise will help the officer prevent diseases such as heart diseases and assist them to control body weight. Additionally, weight control practices and strength, physical exercise will help the police officers build body muscles and enhance their body flexibility hence preventing them from disabilities and injuries. According to most researchers, police officers have low levels of body fitness, especially in areas of aerobic fitness (Ball 67). Studies also indicate that police officers have the highest rate of mortality due to health and safety issues such as colon cancer, heart diseases, injuries, and suicide. Furthermore, police officers suffer work-related risk than any other employees in other job occupations. Many people argue that it is the nature of police officers’ job that they should face such job-related injuries. People believe that since police officers work under all types of conditions, interact with angry citizens, face inherent dangers, interact with upset individuals it is obvious that they must face such injury risks (Gundersen and Robert 79). However, implementing physical and fitness programs for police officers can overcome these beliefs. Police officers also work under stress related challenges such as divorce, and many diseases (Ball 69). However, implementing physical and fitness programs promise to reduce all this stress and make police officers appreciate their profession. Because of this alarming health risk and steady decline of the wellness of police officers, police departments should ensure that they implement fitness and physical programs. This is because these programs will highly benefit both the officers and police agencies. Police officers will profit from these programs since they will improve their abilities to perform their functions well, reduce stress, and gain good physical preparation (Gundersen and Robert 85). Police agencies on the other hand will profit from implementing these programs in terms of performance efficiency and physique. Police officers will be less likely to retire from their duties due to injuries or disabilities, therefore, helping the department to minimize expenses incurred to compensate disabilities and recruiting and training new officers (Ball 71). Studies about performance of police officers stress that active workers demonstrate effective performance of duties. Implementation of physical and fitness programs will also aid to reduce the liability of agencies by ensuring that the police officers receive adequate training to handle all types of tasks. Failure to implement exercise programs can lead to urgency of needless liabilities. Moreover, a total physical and fitness program will influence good living habits to the police officers such as ensuring a balanced diet, weight management, and regular exercises (Gundersen and Robert 89). Police agency administrators should fully support implementation of these fitness programs. This is because there is a current trend in the workplace by ensuring recognition of employees’ fitness since it affects the workers’ performance. ii. Implement programs to train police officers on how to respond to active shooters Most active shooting events leave a large number of police officers with severe injuries and some of them dead. For instance, shooting events such as the 2013 shootings in Newtown and Washington continues to take occur, hence increasing the demand to train police officers on how to respond to the active shooters effectively without getting injured (Ball 75). The purpose of these programs would be to train police officers on how to respond to an active shooting event in order to enable them to fight effectively and safely with the shooters leaving them unharmed. The reality is that, police administrators do not always have enough time to allocate their well-trained and quality-equipped police officers to such events (Gundersen and Robert 93). The administrations sometimes send, the less-trained officers to such action shooting events where they live with severe and deep injuries or even others lose their lives hence affecting the community as well as their families. In order to save, protect police officers from these job-related injuries, the police administration should ensure that the first group of police officers to take part in these events is well-trained on how to direct engage in the activity. This is the reason why this guide stresses that all police training centers should implement programs to train law enforcement officers on how to respond to active shooters. Police administrators should understand that they owe the police officers nothing less (Violanti 15). Comprehensive occupational safety and health programs There is need of law enforcement departments to implement occupational health and safety programs to ensure that it fully protects police officers from risk of injuries. These programs should comprise of three components, including (i) awareness and education about the current and potential injury risks that police officers may face, (ii) the appropriate equipments and programs that will help in reducing police officers’ illness and injuries while in line of duty, and (iii) training on how to use the risk management equipments properly (Ball 76). These programs should be practical in nature as well as laying the foundation of reducing injury risks rather than being active only when an emergency occurs. Police department officials should also acknowledge that incorporating new risk management programs would result to change of the organization’s culture (Gundersen and Robert 98). Occupational safety and health programs require three main features, which include knowledge, prevention and control, and program maintenance and improvement. These three components do not offer a complete checklist to the police executives, the approach gives them a framework that they can use to develop their own risk management program or improve their current efforts. This framework gives law enforcement executives a starting point to create their own safety programs or improve the existing ones (Ball 80). i. Knowledge The first component of this comprehensive safety approach calls for all involved entities to have full understanding of the existing risks and how they should improve the existing programs or develop new safety programs. The involved entities must understand the safeness and wellness of the risk management program they about to develop to determine whether the program will meet its basic requirements, the additional initiates or programs they should implement, and whether the program will cover the threats and injuries faced by police officers effectively (More 75). Each police officer’s department must determine the type of threats the employees face. In order to carry out this effectively, the existing data will be significant to help the entities come up with an appropriate program that will ensure that the police officers enjoy maximum injury protection. Such data will also be helpful in establishing the foundation for evaluating the impacts of the potential programs as well as for surveillance purposes (Violanti 18). Routine versus exceptional occupational safety and health The risks and threats that police officers face are in four categories such as physiological, chemical, biological, and physical. Law enforcement executives cannot avoid any of these threats and risks. Instead, they should implement risk management programs that will aid to reduce these threats, which highly affects the personnel (More 79). The process of coming up with an effective risk management program involves identifying the threats and categorizing them according to frequency and risks. In order for an injury risk program to be essential, police agencies must group, these risks into two categories: daily risks and exceptional risks (Ball 83). For instance, police officers should have bulletproof vests on a daily basis. Programs such physical and fitness programs will also be necessary for reducing daily risk injuries. Legislation and standards Law enforcement officers and executive must conduct a research to determine whether the current efforts can apply to the potential program and they need some amendments and improvements to serve the police officers from injuries effectively. The existing procedures and safety programs, which are effective, can also be incorporated into the new programs. This will add value to the potential risk management program, hence promising the police officers safe and health workplace and situations (More 98). Resources In case of emergency events, police may face a problem of working with scarce resources, hence exposing them to risk of injuries. It is vital for the law enforcement officials to ensure that the departments are readily equipped with all necessary resources. In addition, it is essential to determine which resources to add (Ball 85). New information and research In order for a safety program to work efficiently, law enforcement officials should ensure that the programs are up-to-date with the recent information about all the emerging risks of injuries and safety threats. By ensuring that they have up-to-date information, both resources and plans require earlier arrangement for a certain event or health threat, hence ensuring that the police officers are safe and protected from injuries. Officials and executives should continually have access to the recent information about health and injury risks through conduction of researches (More 145). ii. Control and prevention The second component of comprehensive safety and health program is controlled and prevention. This component aims at eliminating the threats and risks, which are difficult to eliminate. The efforts of eliminating these risks include training, equipment, education, and standards. These efforts may results to safety and risk management programs. In most countries, a number of law enforcement agencies have adopted their own steps of controlling and prevent risk management programs (Violanti 23). For instance, police departments should implement effective injury prevention and care program by employing a qualified athletic trainer to train the police officers on how to be able to overcome injuries during their duties. The athletic trainer should be available throughout to evaluate and treat the acute injuries and ensure a follow up analysis for prior injuries, which officers face while on duty or when they are off duty. Another benefit of hiring an athletic trainer is that this will decrease medical and rehabilitation costs. Additionally, law enforcement official should ensure that each police post has a fitness and health consultant for the purpose of health risk assessments (More 148). The consultant will be conducting an officer survey and give recommendations to the police department such as implementing new practices for the police officers. These programs should also provide police officers with physical fitness practices and monitor their progression. Control and prevention of safety programs aim at decreasing police officers’ injuries, illness, as well as enhancing improvement to their physical health. Department standards Law enforcement departments may decide to implement new standards and alter the existing ones to make them more effective. These internal standards and regulations may encourage that police officers undergo several protective measures against injuries while in the line of duty or off duty. For instance, law enforcement departments may encourage that police officers should wear bulletproof vests during their duties (Ball 87). Other departmental standards may have positive impacts towards prevention of police officers against health risks and injuries. Departments should seek to implement flexible programs, which can benefit police officers on a daily basis or during critical incidents. Equipment Access to all necessary equipments can highly help in reducing the injuries, police officers suffer during their exceptional events. Police departments should consider ensuring that all police officers have safety and health equipments such as bulletproof vests, hand Sanitizers, medical barrier gloves as well as daily training on how to make use of these equipments (More 151). Most of the law enforcement departments worldwide have realized the benefits of using safety equipments such as bulletproof vests because they ensure that the officers’ lives under safe conditions. Additionally, programs to ensure healthy hygiene are also important because they promote a health-working environment and prevent the officers from suffering from some of the killer diseases such as heart failure (Violanti 27). Law enforcement departments should decide on the type of safety equipments to be issued to the police officers depending on their specialty or unity. Determining the type of equipment, the officers should wear helps in ensuring that the police officers receive adequate training prior to a critical emergency event (Ball 95). Training and education programs Ensuring that police officers undergo adequate training on how to use the safety equipments will aid in preventing illness and injuries and can as well improve the confidence of the police officers during critical incidents (More 157). Training should take place in a continuous process or at the time of in-service training. Law enforcement departments should also consider providing the police officers with educational programs on matters concerning general health and injury prevention. Working with qualified partners can highly help in ensuring new training and education programs. Many of these partners may provide the education and trainings under relatively low costs for all the required materials are readily available. Law enforcement officials should seek the need of collaborating with other departments especially medical partners. Communication programs Disseminating timely and accurate information to police officers is a major factor that can greatly help in reducing risk of injuries. This information should also contain action-oriented procedures on how to ensure safety during work (More 159). For instance, a law enforcement department may decide to be sending reminder emails to the police officers on safety measures such as wearing bulletproof vests during active shootouts. During critical events such as active shootings, communication will be imperative since the police officers will mainly rely on this information to make crucial decisions (Ball 95). Implementing a well-designed communication plan indicating the type of information to disseminate, who are responsible for coordinating the information, and under, which means should executive receive the feedback will highly help to reduce risk of injuries during an emergent event. iii. Maintenance and improvement The third component of comprehensive occupational program is maintenance and improvement. This involves giving priority to the current program’s efforts or improving the existing programs (Violanti 31). The aim of maintenance and improvement is to increase awareness of the safety programs so that all law enforcement departments acknowledge the aim of implementing injury management programs. In order to ensure effective maintenance and improvement of the safety programs, law enforcement departments should greatly rely on research data about the existing and potential injuries that police officers can face. Any sensed change about the safety programs should be communicated effectively to the police officers. In order for the set procedures to work as predicted, all involved parties must be aware of any of the program updates (More 162). This will be beneficial because it will reduce any miscommunication risk between the officials and their subordinates. Conclusion In conclusion, healthy workplace is the key to any effective and successful law enforcement department. The department of police should understand that healthy police officers who work under safety and healthy workplaces are able to better perform their duties and serve the community effectively. Furthermore, police officers suffer work-related risk than any other employees in other job occupations and therefore, there is need of implementing risk management programs in their workplaces (Violanti 32). There is need of law enforcement departments to implement occupational health and safety programs to ensure that it fully protects police officers from risk of injuries. Through implementation of safety and health programs for police officers, will highly minimize the risk of getting injuries during their duties. Work cited Ball, Christopher A. California Workers Comp: How to Take Charge When Youre Injured on the Job. Berkeley, CA: Nolo, 2012. Print. Gundersen, D F, and Robert Hopper. Communication and Law Enforcement. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008. Print. More, Harry W. Current Issues in American Law Enforcement: Controversies and Solutions. Springfield, Ill: Charles C. Thomas, 2008. Print. Violanti, John M. Police Suicide: Epidemic in Blue. Springfield, Ill: Charles C. Thomas, 2007. Internet resource. Read More