NCJ Number
213055
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice Volume: 22 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2006 Pages: 26-43
Date Published
February 2006
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This study examined workplace problems that hypothetically can be used to predict and indicate police occupational stress and whether these conditions explained variances in officer’s stress levels.
Abstract
Findings are consistent with prior research arguing that organizational psychologists, as well as others, should pay attention to objective workplace conditions in order to reduce police stress. The most predictive stressors were lack of influence over work activities and biases against one’s racial, ethnic, or gender group. Findings also supported that a lack of influence on how police work is accomplished is a considerable stressor. However, there was little evidence to support notions that community conditions, such as crime rate and poverty, or token status within the organization are not strong indicators of police stress. Police occupational stress is perceived as a widespread problem and steps to reduce this stress need to be taken. This study began by considering whether a variety of workplace problems did indeed explain stress, as well as addressing the question of whether support networks, community characteristics, and a person’s status in a department would explain additional variables in stress. Control variables in the study consisted of an officer’s gender, minority status, education, age, and social class. Tables, appendixes A-B, references