The Impact Of Job-Related Stressors On Incidents Of Excessive Force By Police Officers

Abstract

The present study addresses the relationship between job-related stressors and incidents of police misconduct, a concept that has largely been neglected in policing literature. Manzoni and Eisner’s conceptualization of stress-strain theory provided the foundation for the research. Specifically, this study examines individual differences in the perception of how job-related stressors such as departmental leadership, departmental policies and regulations, and departmental climate are related to incidents of police misconduct expressed through the exercise of excessive force. This quantitative survey design employed the Police Survey of Job Related Stress (PSJRS) among a convenience sample of 94 active police officers (49 African American and 45 European) from a southern U.S. state. T-tests and the Mann-Whitney test were used to document statistically significant differences between white and African American officers across the perceived connection linking the core PSJRS dimensions of job-related stressors to excessive force misconduct. The results promote positive social change by reinforcing social bonds between police and communities and creating safer places to live.

Job Stress, Burnout and Coping in Police Officers: Relationships and Psychometric Properties of the Organizational Police Stress Questionnaire

“…In addition, it is important to identify which coping strategies are mostly used during critical incidents and how post-traumatic stress is presented, as well as substance use/abuse as a coping strategy, like other studies did [ 48 , 95 ]. Moreover, the significant correlations between these constructs suggest they are associated and influence behavior and emotional states, which alerts to the need to study them associated with internal and external aggression, a current concern for researchers [ 7 , 8 , 13 , 29 , 30 , 32 , 33 ]. Despite not being analyzed in this study, Patterson [ 64 ] found police officers with higher educational level used more emotion-focused coping, including seeking support, an interesting result that demands further analyses.…”

“…Furthermore, police officers’ burnout can be related with internal or external aggression, a current social and political concern. Regarding external aggression, excessive use of force among police forces can be a result of high levels of stress [ 2 , 13 , 16 , 28 , 29 , 30 ], which can make police officers assess the situations as more threatening than what they really are [ 31 ]. Regarding internal aggression, several studies [ 7 , 8 , 32 , 33 ] alerted for suicide among police officers due to the easy access to a gun, due to situations which elicit post-traumatic stress disorder, stressful conditions during policing, depression and burnout.…”

Burnout and Stress Measurement in Police Officers: Literature Review and a Study With the Operational Police Stress Questionnaire

“…Individually, it leads to poor mental health (Baldwin et al, 2019;Castro et al, 2019), work-family conflict (Griffin and Sun, 2018), non-adaptive coping strategies and job stress (LeBlanc et al, 2008;Zulkafaly et al, 2017), emotional labor (van Gelderen et al, 2007), burnout Keinan, 2005, 2007;Rosa et al, 2015), and even suicide (Violanti, 1996;Blazina, 2017;Costa et al, 2019;Grassi et al, 2018). Organizationally, it affects performance (Shane, 2010;Bertilsson et al, 2019;Kelley et al, 2019), counterproductive work behaviors (Smoktunowicz et al, 2015), and inappropriate interactions with citizens, such as the use of excessive force (Neely and Cleveland, 2011;Mastracci and Adams, 2019).…”

Show cause analysis

“…It is clear that commitment of operational police officers may be impacted upon by strain within the workplace (Moon and Jonson, 2012), and this in turn may impact upon job satisfaction and commitment to duties. Similarly, officers who report higher levels of stress are also likely to report higher rates of deviant behaviour (Arter, 2008), and are more likely to be subject to excessive use of force incidents (Neely and Cleveland, 2012).…”