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Learning Objectives

8-1:  Describe the unique aspects of police subculture.

8-2:  Analyze the factors that contribute to police subculture.

8-3:  Identify the sources of police stress.

8-4:  Discuss the effects and consequences of police stress.

8-5:  Assess the influence of police shootings and critical incidents on officers.

8-6:  Evaluate the various strategies that both organizations and individual officers can implement to mitigate the negative effects of job-related stress.

Article 1
Paoline III, Eugene E. (2004). An Examination of Officers' Occupational Attitudes. Police Quarterly, 7(2) 205-236. doi: 10.1177/1098611103257074

Research on police culture has generally fallen within one of two competing camps—one that depicts culture as an occupational phenomenon that encompasses all police officers and one that focuses on officer differences. The latter conceptualization of police culture suggests subcultures (or at least segmentation) that bound or delimit the occupational culture. Using survey data collected as part of the Project on Policing Neighborhoods (POPN) in two municipal police departments, the research reported here examines the similarities and differences among contemporary police officer attitudes in an effort to locate some of the boundaries of the occupational culture of police. Seven analytically distinct groups of officers are identified, suggesting that officers are responding to and coping with aspects of their occupational world in different ways. The findings call into question some of the assumptions associated with a monolithic police culture.

1. What are main components of the police subculture?
2. What are distinct groups within the subculture?
3. How does this study’s findings corroborate and/or differ from traditional notions of police subculture?

Article 2
Brannen, Stephen J., Mark Chapin, Mark I. Singer, Michael Walker (2008). Training Police Leadership to Recognize and Address Operational Stress. Police Quarterly, 11(3) 338-352. doi: 10.1177/1098611107307736

A community-based agency developed training for Cleveland Police Department Lieutenants and Supervisory Sergeants. This training adapted current methods used by the U.S. Army to deal with military combat stress. Police leaders were trained to recognize signs of operational stress in their line officers and provide “Leader Actions” to minimize long-term sequelae of operational stress, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, absenteeism, resignation, and misconduct. Laminated pocket cards were provided which summarized warning signs of operational stress, self-care and partner-care actions, and leader strategies to treat early signs of operational stress. Based on focus groups with police supervisors, an incentive system was developed and implemented to reward officers seeking help or assisting other officers in managing operational stress, which could change the culture of keeping silent about problems and remove the stigma attached to help seeking. Eighty-three police supervisors have been trained, with plans to provide further training to district (precinct) commanders. 

1. How can officers recognize stress?
2. What are stress management techniques?