Burnout among police officers is a well-documented phenomenon, with police exhibiting significantly rates significantly higher than other occupations. This is not surprising considering the inherent dangers and challenges police face in the course of their duties. However, police are also subject to a host of institutional and cultural forces that are likely to contribute to burnout. This study examines the variety of ways self-processes, societal and institutional policing values, and demands for emotional presentation on police officers interact to produce burnout. Using data collected from a survey of police officers in the Pacific Northwest ( N = 109), we assess three primary hypotheses: (a) The greater the emotional management required of officers, the greater will be their levels of burnout, (b) The greater the dissonance between officer’s own values and those of various reference groups, the greater will be their levels of burnout, and (c) In combination, value dissonance and emotional labor should produce higher levels of burnout than either would independently produce. Results provide mixed support for these hypotheses suggesting that value dissonance only exhibits independent effects on burnout rooted in depersonalization, whereas effects of emotional dissonance vary depending on the type of burnout under consideration. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.

It has been widely noted that policing is a stressful occupation, leading to a host of adverse outcomes. Many have posited that, in part, this can be explained by the emotional demands imposed on officers as a consequence of their unique role, organization, and culture. Consistent with this premise, a number of studies have found support for the notion that emotive dissonance is particularly likely to contribute to burnout. However, no studies have previously assessed how the complex emotional demands and strategies exercised within policing produce benefits and consequences for officers. Specifically, how do requirements to express coercion or apologize influence officer burnout? How do requirements to express or suppress positive or negative emotion influence burnout? And, do these effects vary depending upon whether greater surface or deep acting is required? The present study suggests that while some aspects of emotive dissonance may be negatively consequential, other emotional demands and strategies used by officers may have advantages. Specifically, while coercion in particular seems to increase depersonalization, both surface acting and attempts to deeply experience required positive emotions actually serve to decrease burnout among officers. The implications of these findings for theory, research, and the prevention of burnout among police are discussed.

Prior research on the family has identified many variables significantly associated with criminal involvement, including such things as parental supervision and discipline and the quality of the parent-child relationship. However, little attention has been devoted to the possibility that the effects of these variables on crime depend on characteristics of the social context in which a family resides. Using data from a national sample of adolescents, the authors examined how the effects of key family variables depend on two indicators of a community's level of disadvantage: its objective level of community poverty (as indicated by U.S. census data) and its perceived inadequacy as a place to raise children (as rated by parents). The analysis suggests that community disadvantage significantly amplifies the effects on crime of problems in the family environment. The implications of this conclusion for criminological theory and future research on the causes of crime are addressed.

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