Issues in small town policing: understanding stress.

"It is not socially acceptable for law enforcement officers to show emotion ... it is a sign of weakness ... a loss of control ... and we are trained and programmed to not lose control under any circumstances. It is inbred into us in the academy, probationary training, and all aspects of law enforcement that if we can't handle the stress, we need to get out." (1)

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Between 1976 and 1999, more than 1,800 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty. (2) The average of 78 dead officers each year is devastating. (3) All law enforcement professionals would do anything to prevent a fellow officer from suffering a violent, premature death. And, yet, in 2000, approximately 400 police officers committed suicide. (4) Even sadder, those deaths represent the ones reported as police officer suicides. How many other officers have died at their own hand due to the stress of "the job"?

To put this in sharper focus, 87 percent of police departments in the United States have 25 or fewer officers; (5) hence, the loss of those 400 represents all of the 25 sworn officers in 16 police departments. Moreover, suicide in law enforcement is three times greater than the national average. (6) Between 1950 and 1990, the number of police officer suicides doubled. (7) These grievous statistics reveal the tragic toll that stress takes on those in the law enforcement profession--a toll that officers themselves may not fully realize. After all, who protects the protectors? Who defends the defenders? Who cares for the caretakers? (8)

The Price of Policing

Today, many police departments engage in extraordinary efforts to select qualified officers. They measure candidate fitness through written examinations, oral interviews, physical fitness batteries, extensive background investigations, polygraph examinations, and psychological testing. By the time an agency selects a candidate, it has spent a great deal of money to determine if that new officer is physically, mentally, emotionally, morally, and ethically fit to do the job. In some cases, an agency may spend as much as $100,000 to recruit, select, and train one police officer in the first year.

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For a small police department, $100,000 (or any amount) represents a substantial investment and an enormous portion of its budget. This investment is not trivial, but one that often appears at risk of being squandered. For example, if it costs an agency $50,000 each year for the wages and benefits for one officer, then, for 10 years, the officer would cost the agency $500,000. That amount does not take into account increases in salary and benefits, tuition-based training costs, and other factors. An accurate figure may be closer to $600,000 over that 10-year period. If the agency has not taken the steps to recognize and reduce stress for that officer and the worst case scenario--suicide--comes to fruition, the monetary cost to replace that officer with another of similar training and experience comes to $1.2 million. What community has that kind of money? But, more important, what about the emotional cost? No one can fix a dollar amount on the welling of emotion, the additional stress, and the devastation felt by the agency's officers, their families, and, most of all, the family of the officer stressed to the point of committing suicide.

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The Physiology of Stress

Regardless of agency size or service area, all law enforcement officers are subject to gross amounts of stress from nearly the moment they enter the profession. Most have been trained to recognize the source of external stressors at work, such as police-involved shootings, violent crime investigations, and physical injury. But, what most law enforcement officers do not understand is the enormous destructive, if not deadly, physiological (internal) effect of stress on the human body.

Though humans have evolved socially over the last several thousand years, their biological system still is wired to either attack or run from danger (fight or flight). As police officers, this creates a physical and emotional conflict with the passing of each call for service. Under highly emotional circumstances, officers must exercise extreme restraint: when excited, they must remain calm; when nervous, they must demonstrate their command of the situation; when in a highly emotional state, they must remain stoic. This conflict between biology and societal expectations takes a physical toll on officers. Regardless of societal expectations of them and despite their outward appearances, officers respond biologically the same as the cave dweller: their bodies expect them to attack or to flee. As police officers, they are wired to attack; the hiring process and subsequent training support the risk-aggressive personality. But, in reality, society expects officers to withdraw or compromise on most issues, but also demands that when danger occurs, they must remain and fight.

This conflict results, for example, in officers effecting a search warrant at a location where they know armed adversaries await. Similarly, while others may flee, they must enter burning buildings to save lives. Officers take inordinate risks that ordinary citizens do not confront. In the end, their bodies pay the ultimate price. Human biology cannot be overcome; the emotional energy that officers hold in over a period of years on the job will take its toll.

How much does an officer's body deteriorate? The life expectancy in the United States is 74.4 years for men and 80.1 years for women. (9) In a 40-year study, police officers with 10 to 19 years of service had an average age of death of 66 years. (10) The research found a "significantly increased risk of digestive and hematopoietic cancers among police officers who have 10 to 19 years" on the job; these findings concurred with other studies that theorized a link between cancer and stress. (11) This same period of employment linked stress with maladaptive behaviors, such as alcohol and tobacco use, and findings indicated that officers have a significantly high mortality risk of esophageal cancer and significantly elevated risk of cirrhosis of the liver. (12) Cirrhosis of the liver was elevated in officers with only 9 years on the job. Officers with 30 years on the job increased their mortality rate more than three times. (13)

Exposure to radar may lead to increased risk of testicle, breast, and prostate cancer. Exposure to gun cleaning solvents, carbon monoxide, and other hazardous materials on the highway may promote heart and kidney diseases. Lead from firearms training and fingerprint powders is linked to cerebrovascular and other diseases. (14)

The Stress of Small Town Policing

Police officer suicide does not happen without warning signs. Some may be as overt as an officer being involved in a shooting. Agencies know that such officers (and their families) need intervention to assist them in coping with the taking of another human life. Often, however, no single traumatic incident leads to an officer committing suicide. More likely, it is cumulative stress that has impacted the human body over time that leads to the physical desperation that then leads to the mental and emotional desperation that ultimately results in suicide. (15)

Each day, officers gird themselves for the dangers and rigors of the job. When they go off duty, the process of "coming down" begins to take effect on the body and mind. Having been hypervigilant for the duration of the shift, the body demands downtime to preserve itself. However, family life and the day-to-day activities of living require the body to continue pushing.

Demands by the body to relax and rejuvenate conflict with the needs of a healthy family life. Because of their line of work, officers often receive requests for legal advice while attending family functions. Or, when at a party with their spouses' friends, they must respond to questions about a police officer's conduct in an agency 3,000 miles away. An event that is supposed to be fun, that is supposed to invigorate them, and that is supposed to be enjoyable becomes another time when they suddenly must put on the shield and wear their "cop hat." Officers constantly face the inability to come down from a hypervigilant state, causing their bodies to deteriorate further and faster.

Police officers who live and work in small towns almost never have an opportunity to decompress. Being well known to the residents, business owners, and others in the community, officers cannot separate on-duty and off-duty time. Essentially, small town police officers live in a fishbowl. Off-duty trips to the store frequently become job related because everyone seems to know the officers and their family vehicles. Spouses often come under close observation because residents may think "that cop" is driving past or, simply, because they are the spouse of a police officer. Taking their children to school becomes complicated when other parents wonder out loud why officers are not at work or when a school administrator asks for advice about an unruly child or parent. All of this "off-duty" interaction disallows decompression and contributes to stress and the deterioration of the small town police officer's body.

In addition to these daily stressors, small town police officers often find themselves in the unenviable position of being the only officer on duty. The nearest backup may be in a town or county many miles away. The level of stress that these officers feel as a result of calls for service may prove greater than that of officers in larger communities with backup at their immediate disposal. The obvious reason for this is that they could be facing danger alone. The less obvious reason, however, is that they have not shared the experience with another officer. Lone officers cannot verbalize their experiences, their emotions, or their reactions. Their first opportunity to express their anxiety could be at the shift change several hours later. The passage of time can have devastating long-term effects on an officer's ability to decompress from the incident and the accumulated stress that it produced.

Finally, officers in small police departments face the hazards of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as often as their fellow officers employed by large law enforcement agencies. Estimates indicate that "roughly 4 percent of all emergency workers will develop post-traumatic stress disorder." (16) In general, "examples of trauma that are likely to cause PTSD (in order of severity) include natural disasters; serious accidents; serious accidents where a person is at fault; intentional life-threatening violence by another person; life-threatening trauma caused by betrayal by a trusted individual; and life-threatening trauma caused by betrayal by someone you depend on for survival." (17) For police officers, a more specific list of stressors would include "killing someone in the line of duty; having your partner killed in the line of duty; lack of support by the department/bosses; shift work and disruption of family time/family rituals; and the daily grind of dealing with the ... public." (18)

Applied to small town policing where every officer is expected to be the first responder to nearly every manner of human tragedy, PTSD readily exists. It may not result from a single incident, but, rather, from the accumulation of stress over a period of time, then triggered by a particular incident that falls within the recognized causes.

In small town policing, officers generally live and work in the community that they serve. In these tight-knit localities where officers know the residents and, in turn, where the residents know them, other contributing factors make the presence of PTSD even more likely. These include "personal identification with the event; knowing the victim; lack of preparation or lack of knowledge of the event ahead of time; the severity and intensity of the event; accumulative exposure to PTSD-causing events; preexisting PTSD; and helplessness" (19) (real or perceived). "No matter how experienced (cops) are or think (they) are, there are incidents (they) may experience or witness that affect (them) deeply emotionally. Our reaction to these experiences is to do what we have always done and been trained to do. We set aside our feelings and deal with the incident. Our job, and sometimes survival, demands it. Afterwards, we don't make a conscious effort to deal or not deal with our feelings, we just move on to the next incident (regardless of whether the subsequent incident is today, tomorrow, or next month) without even thinking about it." (20)

In small towns where traumatic events often do not occur back-to-back, officers should have an opportunity to decompress after a stressful call for service or incident. However, because the community is small and because the tax dollars that support the agency come from the local residents, the police department usually remains under a magnifying glass. When citizens see police cars parked at the station, they may complain that the officers are not working. This scrutiny means that despite the greater potential of a small town officer to decompress by getting out of the public's eye after an incident, they remain on patrol, simmering their own fatal brew.

The Need to Intervene

Small agencies, as well as large ones, often risk squandering the investment in their officers by not taking steps to identify stress in its early stages and working to reduce or eliminate the culture that prevents officers from seeking assistance. Agencies must not ignore early warning signs of stress, such as citizen complaints, declining quantity and quality of the work product, decreasing scores on performance appraisals, failing personal relationships, and sudden changes in the personal appearance and grooming habits of affected officers. With regard to police suicides, the prelude symptoms include divorce, increased use of alcohol (not necessarily alcoholism), depression, and a failure to get help. (21) "Police officers going through a divorce are five times more likely to commit suicide than an officer in a stable marriage. The national divorce rate is 50 percent. All research shows police officers suffer a substantially higher (divorce) rate with estimates ranging between 60 and 75 percent." (22) Agencies must ensure that their officers address such problems and receive qualified assistance in solving them.

Agencies must encourage their officers to have outside interests and hobbies and to balance dedication to the department with an equal devotion to family, friends, and personal interests. Agencies must promote the importance of such a balance and ensure that their officers recognize the dangerous cycle that puts them at risk: by working longer and harder, they will be rewarded so that they will work longer and harder. This can result in divorce, estrangement from children, chemical dependency, and, ultimately, premature death. (23) Agencies must fight against such a mind-set even in today's challenging environment where they must do more with less ... and less ... and less. If not, in the end, their officers may pay a price far too high for the savings in a line-item budget.

The culture of police work also must change. While their recruitment methods must reflect the need to hire the finest people available, agencies must then prove their fidelity to these officers by supporting them at every moment of their career and home life. Police training academies must create an environment of nurturing support so that officers will be better able to police a community of people, not suspects. This does not mean, in any way, the lessening of physical and tactical training, but quite the contrary. Theorists indicate that people intensely trained to expect and react to stress-inducing incidents respond better physically and emotionally in both the short and long term.

Further, performance evaluations should reflect the needs of officers and their families in addition to the traditional ratings that reflect the ability to complete job tasks. After all, the two are inexorably linked. Police administrators need to look at the agency missions and ask themselves if they remain relevant. Are the tasks that officers must perform still relevant? Do they fit the needs of the community? Are their officers thought of as members of the community? Are their families included as part of the community? Do agency rules, regulations, policies, and procedures reflect the need for officers to decompress? Do their actions support their claims of "family first"? For example, instituting a simple regulation that requires all officers (and their families) to attend and successfully complete crisis counseling immediately following any type of traumatic incident can reduce the stigma of seeking help. Making such counseling commonplace will start an evolution of necessary change.

Finally, officers themselves can take simple steps to help their bodies resist the debilitating effects of stress. Among other things, they should--

* eat a carefully balanced diet;

* drink plenty of fluids (caffeine free);

* avoid the use of tobacco products;

* exercise aerobically on a daily basis;

* sleep a minimum of 8 hours in every 24 ("a person kept awake for 17 hours will perform at a standard comparable to that of someone with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.05 percent. After 24 hours without sleep, a person will have capabilities similar to someone with a BAC of 0.10 percent" (24));

* schedule time for themselves;

* take vacations, not just a day off, because the body requires at least 72 hours to adjust to the mind-set of not being at work;

* designate time for hobbies; and

* have a complete annual physical, including blood testing for cholesterol, lead, and all high-risk blood-borne diseases.

Conclusion

Today's world of terrorists and increasingly violent criminals presents highly stressful challenges to law enforcement officers in all American communities, whether large or small. Job-related stress does not limit itself to those officers in large, urban areas but impacts those in small, rural localities as well.

Clearly, 400 police officer suicides each year is not acceptable. The law enforcement community must not allow this to continue; society must not allow this to continue. Only by recognizing suicide as the ultimate indicator of the over-whelmingly stressful profession that law enforcement has become can efforts be found to help its members not only cope with the stress but to enjoy long, healthy lives. Those who have chosen the roles of protector, defender, and caretaker deserve no less.

Endnotes

(1) "Police Officers and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder"; retrieved May 10, 2004, from http://www.home.socal.rr.com/jpmock/ptsd/ptsd.htm.

(2) U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics; retrieved from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov.

(3) While assigned to the Leadership and Ethics Unit at the DEA Academy as part of a fellowship program for state and local police officers, Lieutenant Kelly discussed the impact of stress on the daily lives of law enforcement with Special Agent Lindsey. They shared what they knew about stress, suicide, and small police departments. As their interest grew, so did their research. This article presents a summary of work already published or available on the Internet. They hope that by bringing this information to the forefront, law enforcement administrators will take steps to recognize and reduce the effect of stress on their officers. Those interested in discussing the issue further may contact Special Agent Lindsey at 703-632-5163 or at [e-mail] and Lieutenant Kelly at 603-868-2324 or at [e-mail].

(4) National P.O.L.I.C.E. Suicide Foundation; retrieved May 10, 2004, from http://www.psf.org.

(5) International Chiefs of Police (IACP) Research Center, Big Ideas For Smaller Police Departments, 2002.

(6) T. Baker and J. Baker, "Preventing Police Suicide," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, October 1996, 24-27.

(7) J.M. Volanti, "The Mystery Within: Understanding Police Suicide," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, February 1995, 19-23.

(8) For a comprehensive overview of police officer suicide, see Donald C. Sheehan and Janet I. Warren, eds., U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Suicide and Law Enforcement (Washington, DC, 2001).

(9) CIA World Fact Book, "Interactive Table of World Nations" (July 1, 2002); retrieved on May 10, 2004, from http://www.mrdowling.com.

(10) John M. Violanti, "Study Concludes Police Work Is a Health Hazard,"

American Police Beat, November 2002.

(11) Ibid.

(12) Ibid.

(13) Ibid.

(14) Ibid.

(15) For additional information, see Donald C. Sheehan and Vincent B. Van Hasselt, "Identifying Law Enforcement Stress Reactions Early," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, September 2003, 12-17.

(16) Supra note 1.

(17) Supra note 1.

(18) "The Effects of Stress on Police Officers," text of speech by Dr. Daniel Goldfarb to union delegates; retrieved on May 10, 2004, from http://www.heavybadge.com.

(19) Supra note 1.

(20) Supra note 1.

(21) Supra note 18.

(22) Supra note 18.

(23) For additional information, see Gerald J. Solan and Jean M. Casey, "Police Work Addiction: A Cautionary Tale," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, June 2003, 13-17.

(24) Australian Transport Safety Bureau, Driver Fatigue: An Accident Waiting to Happen; retrieved on May 10, 2004, from http://www.science.org.au/nova/074/074sit.htm.

RELATED ARTICLE: Stress Accumulation

About 15 years ago, I responded to a report of a suicide in progress. Though many years have passed, I can describe in graphic detail what that shotgun-in-the-mouth suicide scene looked like. It wasn't in progress. It had happened more than 8 hours earlier in the backyard of a trailer on a hot August day. Animals had scavenged. Routine? Hardly. Stressful? You bet! Counseling, postincident debriefing? Not a minute. Impact on my mind and body? Probably nobody will know. But, we now know that these incidents likely are a part (small or large) of accumulated stress experienced every day by small town police officers.

--Lieutenant Sean Kelly

By DENNIS LINDSEY, M.Ed., and SEAN KELLY