The Influence of Early Strain on Later Strain, Stress Responses, and Aggression by Police Officers

Abstract

Research has established policing as one of the most stressful occupations and that work-induced strain can lead to various criminal and negative outcomes. This study extends existing literature in criminology and criminal justice by applying general strain theory to police stress. This study examines the influence of prior strain—namely, child abuse and interparental violence—on officer critical incident strain, psychological–physiological stress responses, and officer-on-officer aggression. Data analyzed the stress responses of 1,104 police officers from the Police Stress and Domestic Violence in Police Families in Baltimore, Maryland, and results show that prior strain events influence respondents in three key ways. First, those reporting exposure to childhood strain had higher work-related strain scores. Second, youthful strain events and work-related critical incident strain are associated with increased stress. Finally, child abuse exposure and critical incident strain increases the odds of officer-on-officer violence among participants. The sample offers several important implications for strain theory because it includes only adult respondents and offers some degree of control for serious adolescent delinquency.

Estresse, qualidade de vida e estressores ocupacionais de policiais: Sintomas mais frequentes

“…A possibilidade do suicídio é especialmente preocupante em policiais, uma vez que eles têm acesso fácil a armas (Stuart, 2008). Além do aspecto pessoal, há implicações sérias para a comunidade, uma vez que estudos mostram que policiais com estresse empregam mais violência contra civis (Kurtz, Zavala, & Melander, 2015;Manzoni & Eisner, 2006). Desse modo, torna-se fundamental identificar e tratar o policial que venha a sofrer de estresse em função de sua atividade profissional.…”

Police stress, depression, and substance use among police officers: a general strain perspective.

“…A study by Kurtz et al (2015) Regression models were generated to explore the influences of environmental and organizational strain on anger, depression, and burnout. Results revealed that organizational strain significantly impacted anger among all three police departments and did not differ greatly, suggesting that participants in urban departments experienced similar organizational stressors regardless of geographic location.…”

“…Research on adolescent, college student, and police officer samples suggest that GST can explain a range of maladaptive behavior adopted by individuals to cope with felt strain. For example, GST has been utilized to examine violent and non-violent offenses (Aseltine et al, 2000;Hay & Evans, 2006;Hoffman & Miller, 1998;Moon et al, 2009;Sigfusdottir et al, 2012), alcohol use (Swatt et al, 2007;Yun & Lee, 2015), physical aggression (Gibson et al, 2001;Kurtz et al, 2015), organizational commitment (Moon & Jonson, 2012), occupational burnout (Bishopp et al, 2018), and turnover intention (Shim et al, 2015). Although the results obtained in these studies offered support for GST, many failed to measure strain properly.…”

“…In this regard, researchers had to construct measures derived from a small number of items (Aseltine et al, 2000;Kurtz et al, 2015;Moon et al, 2009;Moon & Jonson, 2012;Shim et al, 2015;Sigfusdottir et al, 2012) or items with lower levels of reliability (Hoffman & Miller, 1998) than preferred. Likewise, multiple studies (Bishopp et al, 2018;Gibson et al, 2001;Hay & Evans, 2006;Hoffman & Miller, 1998;Kurtz et al, 2015;Swatt et al, 2007;Yun & Lee, 2015) failed to consider the three primary categories of strain due to the nature of the data. Including few items in a measure sufficiently limits the measurement of the theoretical construct under investigation, and the absence of extensively validated measures allows for the possibility of other factors not considered in the analyses to account for the observed relationships.…”

“…The current research contributes to the empirical development of GST by testing the framework using new sample data, a validated strain measure, and rigorous statistical methods. Different from police strain measures examined in prior GST studies (e.g., Bishopp, Piquero, Worrall, & Piquero, 2018;Gibson et al, 2001;Kurtz, Zavala, & Melander, 2015;Moon & Jonson, 2012;Shim, Joe, & Hoover, 2015;Swatt et al, 2007;Yun & Lee, 2015), the current study includes a strain measure capturing multiple types of strain unique to the policing context. The investigation examines the mediating effect of depression on the relationship between strain (i.e., financial problems, time away from family, and media scrutiny) and substance use as a form of coping among a sample of Midwestern police officers using structural equation modeling (SEM).…”