Humanity of Policy - Research Proposal Example

III. Literature Review “It is not socially acceptable for law enforcement officers to show emotion…it is a sign of weakness…a loss of control…and we are trained and programmed to not loose control under any circumstances. It is inbred into us in the academy, probationary training, and all aspects of law enforcement that if we can’t handle the stress, we need to get out (Lindsey & Kelly, 2004).” There is no denying the fact that almost all the police officers are vulnerable to gross amounts of tension and stress, irrespective of the nature and size of agency for which they work. Though a considerable number of law enforcement officers have a rudimentary training into recognizing the sources of stress accompanying situations like shootouts and violent crimes, still a majority of them do fail to grasp the size and scope of the physiological and psychological effects of stress on their body and mind (Ford, 1998). Police officers often come across gory and disturbing scenes accompanying violent crime investigations and shootings. Over the years, the cumulative impact of such incidents gives way to physical and emotional disturbances, which can fructify into undesirable results and consequences. Now is the time when the authorities and the people need to change their perceptions about law enforcement officers. They are not mere heartless and dry automatons, impervious to emotional trauma and stress, but live and pulsating humans whose very nature of work requires them to face violent incidents and situations. Yes, law enforcement officers do feel stress and there is no dearth of data revealing the unwanted impact of that stress on their personal and professional lives (Ford, 1998). Between the year 1976 and 1999, nearly 1,800 police officers and law enforcement personnel lost their lives in the line of duty (Lindsey & Kelly, 2004). This comes down to an average of 78 officers per year. In fact, the state and the authorities are utterly sensitive to this issue and are doing their best in terms of upgrading the police infrastructure and equipment, modernizing training procedures and assuring ample budgetary allocations to save the lives of police officers. Sadly, the authorities are not as cognizant of and responsive to the silent killer called stress that has a more drastic impact on the mindset of law enforcement officers. All because of occupational stress, more then 400 police officers committed suicide in the year 2000 alone (Lindsey and Kelly, 2004). What more, the rate of suicide amongst the law enforcement officers in the US stands to be thrice that of the national average (Lindsey & Kelly, 2004). The deathly toll that stress takes on the protectors and defenders of the civic life urgently needs to be arrested and dealt with. In the course of evolution, humans have not been able to develop a pragmatic control over their fight or flight instincts. Police officers like other people are vulnerable to emotional highs that come with a serious situation. The officers are required to practice restraint under emotionally charged scenarios. They are instructed to remain calm when a situation evokes excitement and unrest. This continual tussle between biological and psychological aspects of their personality takes a severe toll on their physical and emotional health. Police officers are expected to be combat ready, while at the same time maintain poise and equilibrium. This is too much to ask from any person. Studies have shown that occupational stress is one major factor that has a potentially negative impact on the family lives of police officers. Statistics show that approximately 40 percent of the American police officers tend to resort to domestic violence and marital abuse (Gauthier & Gregory, 2007). As per the data gathered by National Center for Women and Policing, a police officer is four times more likely to commit domestic violence as compared to an average citizen (Gauthier & Gregory, 2007). Exposure to traumatic experiences on the job is a way of life for police personnel. The need to restrain emotions in the face of innervating and risky situations often endows the officers with a bulky emotional baggage, which they may prefer to lighten at home. One debilitating influence of this emotional baggage is that it makes them more aloof and self contained, shunning any need to communicate their experiences with a friend or a colleague. Thus, police officers often are more likely to be irritable and nasty at home. This vicious spiral comprising of occupational trauma and domestic violence often has the capacity to push a normal officer to the brink of disaster. It is not a surprise that the law enforcement community has an above average divorce rate. Irritability and stress resulting from exposure to trauma is more likely to give way to broken homes and dysfunctional families. It is a pity that these guardians of social poise have to bear with such a sad and tragic plight at the home front. Since long, police officers in the US have often resorted to alcohol as a social lubricant to deal with on the job stress (Siegel, 2001). As per some conservative estimates, more then 30 percent of the police officers in the country have alcohol or drugs related problems. In fact, this is now an open secret and many states have responded to this issue by running peer assistance programs to deal with alcohol and substance abuse related problems in their rank and file. Police officers definitely are influenced by what they see, feel and hear at work. Not being able to communicate their suppressed emotions in a healthy way, some may try to douse these issues with alcohol and narcotics. Being sensitive and responsive to the emotional aspects of policing is not only humane, but also does make financial sense. Both, the federal and state law enforcement agencies make all the possible effort to recruit officers with right aptitude and qualifications. They resort to elaborate recruitment procedures involving written tests, physical fitness tests, psychological tests, personal interviews and background checks (Lindsey & Kelly, 2004). By the time an agency is finished with testing, recruiting and training a police officer, it has spent a considerable amount of the taxpayers’ money in ascertaining the physical and psychological fitness of that candidate. Minimally, this expenditure often amounts to $ 100,000 per police officer (Lindsey & Kelly, 2004). Still, this is not the be all and end all of police financing. A police department has to spend $ 50,000 per year to provide for wages and other benefits of a police officer (Lindsey & Kelly, 2004). A cursory calculation reveals that total expenditure incurred in retaining and training a police officer over a period of ten years comes to $ 600,000 (Lindsey & Kelly, 2004). In such a scenario, if a law enforcement agency ends up losing a police officer to stress related suicide, domestic violence, health problems or substance abuse, the financial burden of replacing that police officer with an other officer having the same training and experience stands to be $ 1.2 million (Lindsey & Kelly, 2004). Thus, loosing a police officer to emotional stress is not only a grave human and social loss, but also a massive professional and financial loss. Hence, caring for the emotional and psychological well being of police officers should as much be a part of modern day policing, as furnishing police officers with latest training, state of the art gadgetry and up to date infrastructure. During their tenure, police and law enforcement officers do witness situations and incidents involving violence, which could sometimes be way too much for an average human to cope up with (Anshel, 2000). Hence, it will be too naïve and simplistic to assume that such incidents and situations have no impact on the personal and professional life of police officers. Almost, always, police officers are busy at helping others cope with personal loss and trauma. It is a pity that they often fail to take a conscious cognizance of such traumatic events on their lives. Mostly the influence of on the job stress on an officer is so subtle and prolonged that by the time, one comes to realize its potential and gravity; one may have already lost one’s health, family, self-esteem, honor, job and sometimes life. Police departments have started being responsive to occupational trauma and its impact on those officers who are exposed to acts of violence and suffering on a continuous basis. Continual exposure to trauma may make a police officer loose one’s sense of orientation, which may be accompanied by anxiety, panic fits, failure to manage anger, suicidal tendencies, etc. Some officers may try to grapple with such unbearable situations by succumbing to excessive alcohol and substance abuse, unhealthy food habits, gambling, etc. In addition, police officers are also vulnerable to Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder (STSD). Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder is defined as, “the natural consequent behavior and emotions resulting from knowing about a traumatizing event experienced by a significant other (Atkinson, 2003).” The onus of helping a stressed or traumatized colleague may sometimes prove to be self-inflicting for a police officer. Law enforcement professionals who try to help victims of pain and suffering may themselves end up with pain, anxiety and fear. This situation is further aggravated by the fact that many police officers feel that if they try to seek professional help for such symptoms, it may be perceived as their being weak and out of control. The irony of the matter is that the traumatized officers have to bear with a more then average stigma and disapproval as compared to other officers because both the colleagues and superiors mostly misinterpret their symptoms and defense mechanisms. In addition, police officers are also susceptible to Vicarious Traumatization. “The concept of Vicarious Traumatization refers to the transformation in the officer’s inner experience resulting from empathic engagement with victim’s trauma material. For example, the exposures to graphic accounts such as child sexual abuse experiences and the realities of people’s intentional cruelty to one another (Atkinson, 2003).” Vicarious Traumatization is a potent occupational hazard that officers have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Narratives of abuse and victimization and the conscious recognition of the life changing potential of an act of trauma may leave the concerned officers with an altered worldview, which is oft painful and depressing. Most of what police officers have to deal with on a daily basis can no way be classified as normal and bearable. Such experiences make police officers vulnerable to Critical Incident Stress. A Critical Incident is an event that has the potential to stress the involved police officer to the extent of being overwhelmed and unable to cope with it. Critical Incidents are powerful and unusual incidents that do not come within the ambit of ordinary human experiences (Miller, 2006). Sometimes Critical Incidents have the power and the ability to destabilize even the most seasoned and skilled officers. Critical Incident Stress may leave a police officer feeling unsure of one’s abilities and skills and may shatter one’s confidence. Research has shown that almost 87 percent of the police officers have to deal with Critical Incident Stress, at least once in their life. Critical Incident Stress combined with stress from other job related factors can sometimes make the situation really critical and precarious for the effected officer. This is because Critical Incident Stress has a direct negative impact on the physical, emotional and cognitive abilities of a police officer (Miller, 2006). The symptoms of such trauma may manifest themselves instantaneously or may erupt sporadically over a long period. Sometimes, a Critical Incident Stress may so shatter the professional abilities and competency of a policy officer that he may have to literally opt out of the services. Federal and state law enforcement agencies are gradually responding to the stress related problems in armed forces. The latest statutory guidelines and provisions also place the onus of treatment and counseling of the police officers affected by job related stress on the respective police departments and agencies. Still, the one major impediment to any plausible solution to this problem is that most of the times, the effected officers shirk any sort of medical or professional assistance to avoid being tagged as weak or incompetent. What is required is a momentous and drastic change in the prevailing culture in the law enforcement agencies and the way authorities and people perceive the law enforcement officers. The most awesome factor hampering a marked cultural shift in the armed forces is the age-old tendency of perceiving law enforcement officers as being tough, resilient and stoic (Kurke & Scrivner, 1995). Though a majority of police officers may prefer to perpetuate such perceptions, the reality is that such views are not in consonance with recent developments in the filed of psychology and law enforcement. What is required is a drastic humanization of the way police officers are perceived by people and authorities (Kurke & Scrivner, 1995). Such a change must begin from the top echelons of law enforcement. Once the officers come to realize that, their superiors and seniors do not perceive their emotional responses to critical situations as being a sign of weakness and vulnerability, this will encourage them to be more open with their stress related problems. This will also do away with the traditional aversion exhibited by police officers in subscribing to medical and professional help. An official and statutory recognition of the emotional aspect of policing will help in diluting the age-old mistrust, which police officers mostly harbor against their employers. There exists a dire need for extending mental health services to police force. However, such plans are bound to come across some hurdles (Miller, 2006). One obstruction is that police officers always prefer to consider oneself as being competent and sufficient and hence resist such provisions. Even if they agree to avail help, they find it practically difficult to trust their counselors. Counselors also often being oblivious to the details and intricacies of policing are not able to respond appropriately to their patients in uniform. One possible way of circumnavigating the officers’ mistrust of external mental health professionals is to involve people from within the police force in stress management initiatives (Miller, 2006). In fact, may police departments and agencies have come to realize the validity of such an approach and have initiated peer support programs. Peer support officers are trained in basic counseling skills and to identify stress related problems in their fellow officers. Officers seeking help also find it easy to trust these officers because of the existing sense of camaraderie and positive respect between them. Surely, it is the time to acknowledge that police officers also happen to be human and thus vulnerable to carnage and violence they come across in their professional life. The stress and trauma that these officers have to bear with in the line of duty, if left unresolved and suppressed will have a direct negative bearing on all the aspects of their life, be it personal or professional. The situation demands a drastic change in the way authorities and masses perceive law enforcement personnel. Besides, a formal institutionalization of the mental health services in the police force is bound to enhance its efficiency and productivity. References Anshel, M. (2000). “A conceptual model and implications for coping with stressful events in police work”. Criminal Justice and Behavior. 27 (3): pp.375-400. Atkinson-Tovar, Lynn. “The impact of repeated exposure to trauma”. Law & Order. Hendon Publishing Company. 2003. Retrieved July 1, 2009 from HighBeam Research: http://www .highbeam.com/doc/1P3-426147721.html Ford, Wayne D. Managing Police Stress. New York: Management Advantage, 1998. Gauthier, Kelli & Gregory, Lauren. “Officer violence linked to stress”. McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. 2007. Retrieved June 25, 2009 from HighBeam Research: http:// www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-168033288.html Kurke, Martin & Scrivner, Ellen M. Police Psychology into the 21st Century. London: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1995. Lindsey, Dennis, Kelley. “Issues in Small Town Policing: Understanding Stress”. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. Superintendent of Government Documents. 2004. Retrieved June 30, 2009 from HighBeam Research: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-6729110491 .html Miller, Laurence. Practical Police Psychology: Stress Management and Crisis Intervention For Law Enforcement. New York: Charles C. Thomas Publishers, 2006. Siegel, Robert. “Profile: Possible ways to assist police officers with alcohol problems that may be related to the stress on their jobs”. NPR All Things Considered. 2001. Retrieved June 27, 2009 from HighBeam Research: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-46671432 .html Read More