Stress Associated with the Law Enforcement Profession



Stress Associated with the Law Enforcement Profession

Introduction

Repeatedly law enforcement professionals are taken for granted because of how dedicated they are to their job. Termed as the 'tough guys', which has been applied to men as well as women, are frequently bared to various sorts of traumatic situations and routine pressures and to deal with these occurrences it is necessary for them to be tough, have the right attitude and temperament and be trained vigorously.

Without determination, they would be unable to perform their duties well. However, at times the stress overwhelms these helpers and the tough attitude that assisted in smooth operation of their day-to-day work life, becomes a barrier in their life's forcing them to seek help.

The challenges and stressors police officers, criminal investigators and the personnel of law enforcement face have been known to require interventions and at times psychotherapeutic methods to cope and deal with. This leads to the growing importance for law enforcement heads such as the supervisors and those in administration to understand how to best cater to the psychological needs of their officers.

Dealing with Stress in Law Enforcement

Police officers often have very tight closed groups even then are normally reluctant to show any sign of weakness to their own peers or to anyone on the outside. Compared to other emergency service workers such as fire fighters or the paramedics, they do not have the team mentality as they generally have a single partner. This makes it a challenging task for clinicians wanting to identify and assist those officers who are in distress (Dick, 2000).

Patrol Officer

Everyone has to admit, even those civilians who do not care for officers that their job is a difficult, risky and often times unrewarding and thankless. They have to frequently deal and interact with the violent, predatory and the reckless of the society, risk their lives to protect ours and face situations that the rest of us only come across from the safe distance of our television and newspapers. Apart from the day-to-day grinding, cops are regularly criticized, complained upon and targeted by the very citizens they are protecting, media, the legal system, social service workers and at times their own supervisors and law enforcement institutes. Cops usually go about their responsibilities and duties with devotion and commitment but when stress overwhelms them then they reach their breaking point (Miller, 2007).

It could occur due to a certain traumatic incident such as a horrific accident, a crime against a juvenile, death or injury of a partner, coming in harm's way and almost dying, hurting a civilian or solving a crime of a huge scale. These incidents can lead to the development of a posttraumatic stress disorder. Signs of such a disorder are numbing of responses, impaired and intrusive memory, hallucinations, social withdrawal, memories of the incident in the form of nightmares, irritation, inability to concentrate, depression, insomnia and at times abuse of drugs and alcohol. For some cops there may not ...