Stress In Law Enforcement Essay Research Paper

Stress In Law Enforcement Essay, Research Paper

Back

Police Officer Stress & Agency Organizational Structure.

Police Stress

Role Ambiguity and Role Conflict

Organizational Dysfunctions

Research Issues

Role Ambiguity

Role Conflict

Formalization Inventory

Organizational Factors Inventory

Personality Research Form

Methodology

Sample

Findings

Role Ambiguity and Role Conflict

Formalization

Regression Model

Organization Factors

Discussion

Role Conflict Model

Suggestions

Suggestions for Future Research

Appendix a

References

I. POLICE OFFICER STRESS & AGENCY ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

Although, law enforcement officers deal with stressful situations in the normal course of their duties excessive stress on

individual officers may impair their ability to carry out their responsibilities. In addition to the impact on individuals, excessive

stress on officers means that the law enforcement organization they serve suffers a adiminished capacity to serve the public.

Therefore, in order to keep law enforcement organizations operating at optimal levels, administrators must be able to identify

the causes of dysfunctional stress on individual officers and take effective action to ameliorate its effects.

Much of the contemporary literature on the causes of law enforcement stress focuses on factors personal to the individual

officer. However, other researchers suggest that an officer’s ability to cope with this stress is hindered by the structure and

operation of the organization within which he or she works. In other words, the argument is made that aggregate-level elements

– organizational structure and operation — may contribute in explaining the nature and extent of an individual-level phenomenon

– law enforcement officer stress.

Society can be conceived as a complex arrangement of individual relationships and interdependencies within a framework of

organizations. In one form or another, organizations exist for various lengths of time and perform an immeasurable variety of

tasks (Hage & Aiken, 1970). Organizations are an individual’s way of navigating through contemporary existence. We are

constantly concerned with assessing our roles and positions within organizations. Yet our knowledge of organizations is difficult

to grasp.

Not only are we members of many organizations, but as members of our society, we rely on organizations to provide and

protect our well being. The protection provided by organizations comes in two ways. First, organizations supply our livelihood

and entertainment. A great many of our personal interactions are as representatives of one organization to another. Positive

interactions with organizations can lead to improved self-esteem, job satisfaction and a high quality of life. Secondly,

organizations provide for a division of labor that allows our complex society to exist. An individual does not need to supply all

his own food, clothing and shelter, but is free to purse the activities that provide the means to have other organizations supply

these needs. Among the myriad organizations providing services are governments, and more specifically, law enforcement

organizations. Crime, and the resultant need for law enforcement, are perceived as being fundamentally important in current

society (Webb and Smith, 1980).

As part of that protection system approximately 3,080 county sheriff departments exist in the United States. Of these, 501 have

fifty or more sworn personnel. Sheriffs’ organizations are unique among law enforcement in that they provide a full range of

services such as police patrol, investigations, corrections, court security and civil functions. Like all public agencies, sheriffs are

subject to constant public review, have limited budgets, and are under pressure to operate efficiently. Discovering the means to

allow these organizations to work better is an important public policy goal. Also unique to sheriff’s departments is the

perceptions that the desirability of jobs differs among separate divisions of the agency. For example, the Corrections division

may view its functions as less desirable than work in other divisions.

A brief discussion of police stress and organizational disfunction follows. This research contends that much of what is called

police stress in reality evolves from the creation of role ambiguity and role conflict. The resultant product, police stress,

becomes dysfunctional to the individual officer when the organizational structure exacerbates the effects of the stimuli instead of

lessening them.

I. A. POLICE STRESS

“Police stress” is considered by many analysts to be an important societal problem (Cullen, et al., 1985), and police work is

thought of as stressful (Kelling and Pate, 1975). Law enforcement officers must be aware of the dangers of psychological stress

(Hurrell and Kroes, 1975). Stress is the result of “deman

Внимание, отключите Adblock

Вы посетили наш сайт со включенным блокировщиком рекламы!
Ссылка для скачивания станет доступной сразу после отключения Adblock!

Скачать