NCJ Number
138168
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography Volume: 17 Issue: 4 Dated: (January 1989) Pages: 435-452
Date Published
1989
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Indepth interviews of the emotional labor of general investigative detectives with criminals and victims revealed that detectives find some but not all emotional labor alienating.
Abstract
With the shift from a production to a service economy, increasing numbers of Americans have jobs that require them to manage their own and others' feelings. Workers who do emotional labor often experience burnout and become estranged from their feelings. To evaluate this phenomenon among police detectives, interviews were conducted with the investigative staffs of a police department and a sheriff's department. The departments served similar jurisdictions of about 40,000 people. Interviews collected data on detectives' interpretations of their work. Questions pertained to how many cases they worked, how they spent their days, how they solved crimes, how their job varied by shift and crime type, and how they felt about their encounters with criminals and victims. The detectives disliked their encounters with victims but enjoyed their encounters with criminals. They discounted the emotional displays of criminals as unauthentic, redefined emotional labor as relevant to catching criminals, and turned their encounters into a game. They could not, however, transform their uncomfortable encounters with victims into a positive experience. Study findings suggest that emotional labor need not be alienating. Even in the same occupation, some emotional labor will be satisfying or at least bearable, while other emotional labor will be alienating. 26 references