Traumatic Stress in Police Officers: A Career‐Length Assessment from Recruitment to Retirement

Citation

Baker, T.E. (2010), "Traumatic Stress in Police Officers: A Career‐Length Assessment from Recruitment to Retirement", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 761-765. https://doi.org/10.1108/13639511011085114

Introduction

This book on traumatic stress in police officers is one volume in a series of eight books on police stress or suicide published by Charles C. Thomas and either authored by J.M. Violanti or co‐authored by Violanti and Paton. It provides an excellent reference source for researchers, counselors, police leaders and law enforcement trainers. The authors provide a scholarly approach that describes research on a variety of traumas and critical incidents confronted by police within both a theoretical and practical framework. The text suggests that police leaders need to enhance officer capabilities from an organizational framework to confront a progressively more uncertain future. Managing trauma throughout the police career into post‐retirement requires considerable leadership commitment and assessment.

The text will be of significant interest to police organizations that encounter a higher risk of unanticipated traumatic stressors. Besides being of value to law enforcement leaders and supervisory personnel, human resource personnel, health and safety professionals, and mental health professionals and consultants should find this text to be an excellent source. The text will also be relevant to those researching traumatic stress, disaster stress, and emergency management as well as other protective services

Text presentation

The attention‐grabbing cover and well‐organized themes encourage readers to pursue the book's content. Concise entries provide a pleasant reading experience, as observed in the suitable presentation and easy‐to‐read format. The large fonts and double‐spaced text assist in a reader‐friendly integration of expert commentary. Citations incorporated after each entry, encourage readers to further their scholarly pursuits and research. In general, this text is a superior scholarly contribution in the area of theme development, clarity and coherence.

Purpose

The purpose of this book is to illustrate a career perspective for dealing with traumatic stress in police officers. The goal is to provide a comprehensive conceptualization of traumatic stress processes as they apply to police officers. The text recommends that agencies provide a structure and intervention programming in ways that reflect the changes over the course of a police career.

The authors investigate the police and trauma literature to examine policing as a career path from recruitment to retirement. Furthermore, they examine pre‐employment stress factors that influence resilience and police officer vulnerabilities. The intent is to gather appropriate research that supports successful traumatic risk management programming. Secondary to that purpose is a noteworthy attempt to provide a teaching resource for police officers, mental health professionals and related support organizations.

Overview

The text begins with pre‐employment stress experiences and their implications for operational well‐being. It draws upon experimental research to provide an evidence‐based approach to stress risk management and well‐being in contemporary policing. This book provides information that police agencies can use to develop their officers and their organizations in ways that enhance their capability to confront an increasingly uncertain future in ways that maximize the interests of front‐line policing.

This text is an excellent review of the impact of trauma exposure on police officers. The authors provide a central theoretical life course model that conceptualizes the police career journey and associated traumas and stressors. The authors examine pre‐employment trauma, assimilation into the police role, and police career stages. Central to this exploration of the police role are increased trauma potential, coping efficacy, and possible avoidance transitions to post traumatic stress disorder.

The contents of the book stem from two general principles derived from life‐course theory:

1. 1.

   the “contextualism principles” advocates that a comprehensive understanding of development can only spring from the investigation within the contexts of the police organization and the wider society in which it exists; and

2. 2.

   “life stage principle” advocates that the way personal experience and social events affect people and influences them by where they are in their career span when events occur.

Text themes

Critical incidents have the capacity to triumph over officer resilience. Officers experience emotional trauma during and in the aftermath of critical incidents of which post traumatic stress disorder can emerge. Several lesser stress reactions are also possible, depending upon the individual officer who experiences an unfortunate trauma scenario.

Police officers experience positive and negative emotional outcomes while encountering challenging field events. Positive and negative post trauma emotional experiences vary extensively over the course of a career. Moreover, family, police culture, and community support have significant and independent influences on trauma outcomes. Controlling the variables and comparing individuals is difficult because of the frequency, intensity, duration and individual resiliency. Police officers may experience different stress outcomes in response to individual resilience and vulnerability variables.

Law enforcement agencies should provide a target‐specific foundation for developing a satisfactory match for aspiring officers. Human resources objectives strive to match their selection criteria in response to the police agency. Selected officer applicants serve as a fit and match agency qualifications. Psychologists involved in police testing find it difficult to screen‐out applicants on personality testing. The process of screening‐in applicants is the more probable outcome.

The authors approach their research from the perspective of how police officers experience traumatic events:

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  this form of analysis includes events prior to becoming a police service;

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  personal and professional expectations of police recruits;

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  cultural beliefs;

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  practices and attitudes within the police organization;

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  officers' perceptions of their organizational and operational experiences; and

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  their career progressions all interact to influence critical incident stress.

The authors acknowledge that many career transitions offer predicable pathways that respond to negotiations, appropriate programming and support. However, sudden traumatic events that occur without warning or past experiences create unpredictable consequences that influence officers and their organization. Risk management requires proactive management that responds to the immediate and long‐term impact of organizational and environmental changes, whether their onset is sudden or gradual.

Police officers who disengage early in their careers are financial burdens on police organizations. The emotionally walking wounded are not productive police officers. These officers avoid the conflict and stress and displace emotional burdens to other officers. Emotionally damaged officers may be vulnerable to stressful incidents and incur future mental health problems. There are many financial issues and related emotional costs if officers with unresolved issues remain in law enforcement agencies.

Research assessment

They advocate the concept of organizational resilience as an essential component of any critical incident, stress risk management strategy and related programming. In addition, the researchers conclude that organizational resilience has a positive influence on officer resilience.

The organization's responsiveness to changing and often challenging environments nurtures and helps maintain officer resilience. Therefore, the commitment to investigate, monitor, respond and evaluate change, not matter what the tempo, is a win‐win situation for the department, officers and their communities. In other words, the concept of officer and department resilience is reciprocal. One entity depends on as well as nourishes the other.

Another enlightening insight is the authors' suggestion that observers often collapse the officer and critical incident into one single event that begins and ends with clear deliberate moments in time. They suggest that critical risk management is an evolving process that accommodates officer integration into the organizational structure and immersion in the police culture.

This concept takes into consideration the impact of both prior experiences and experiences learned from the job that influence their interpretation of the fluid and sometimes‐unpredictable environment. The ideal broader career‐length perspective offers acknowledgement of the residual effects of decades of challenging encounters that affect the lives of police officers as they maneuver through their life/career transitions.

Lessons learned

The final remarks include a discussion of the implications of a police career that impact disengagement or retirement from this role. Moreover, the conclusion discusses lessons learned, and research limitations. The area of police research trauma and suicide is fraught with methodology and research problems. This adds to the burden of coming to definitive conclusions and recommendations.

The authors recommend that in the future, a career‐length approach and longitudinal investigation of critical incident stress risk serve as a vanguard priority. The follow‐up to their research foundations is important in spite of several pragmatic obstacles. Following cohorts that might take decades to track is a difficult endeavor.

The book concludes with an enlightening discussion concerning training and planning. Police agency leadership has a profound impact on the officers' resilience and ability to cope with trauma. Effective leadership strives to mitigate the adverse affects of trauma and deter the consequences of long‐term exposure to trauma and the related hazards. The management and organizational milieu can offer a proactive risk management approach, vulnerability assessment, and resilience training.

The best recommendation concerns resilience training. Police training offers the opportunity to desensitize police recruits to traumatic field experiences. The police academy that provides realistic training that approximates operational requirements serves the recruits well. Training simulations impose meaning and coherence for future operational experience that allows real world applications. Training that approximates critical incidents and simulation‐based training exposes officers to challenging situations that enhance practice skill levels.

Simulations encourage the integration of theory and field applications. They provide a broad range of opportunities to apply the officers' knowledge to realistic scenarios. Lessons learned from the critique and reactions of participants allow trainees opportunities to apply essential concepts and knowledge from a critical incident perspective.

The researchers cite several important police organizational changes:

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  the need for a paradigm shift in the conceptualization and management of critical incident stress risk;

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  the need to beyond the relationship between the officer and event in a single point in time; and

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  adopt a broader career‐length approach.

This is difficult to achieve because the counseling focus is on the officer and the critical event. However, the career approach complements the officer's resiliency and recovery process.

Many of the experiences and transitions police officers encounter are predictable. Police leadership that anticipates the career stage consequences develop policy rules and procedures that enhance the pathway. However, some transitions remain unpredictable, including the impact of catastrophic crisis events.

Planning is essential to managing critical incident stressors effectively. This means that police leaders act proactively with some vision toward the future. The planning process considers career transitions. Risk management planning assumes that some career transitions are in response to changes in the policing environment and can affect the future risk of their officers. The adaptation of police organizations to critical incidents is an important precursor to organizational resilience.

In conclusion

Traumatic Stress in Police Officers: A Career‐Length Assessment from Recruitment to Retirement will find widespread use throughout law enforcement agencies. Library acquisitions will elect to include this text in collections that strive to serve public needs. Moreover, community colleges, colleges, and universities might incorporate this book as a reader in their criminal justice program offerings and include the text as part of their prestigious literary collections.