Protecting the Sheepdog: Resource Allocation during Budget Restrictions
Nationally, law enforcement agencies are recruiting and screening citizens to ensure qualified applicant have the moral and psychological aptitude to protect their communities. While the agencies are striving to provide transparency in policing practices and allowing only the most qualified candidates a chance at serving, there is little discussion outside scholarly channels about the challenges law enforcement officers face. Many departments are being forced to do more with less and often times officers are the ones who are shortchanged.
Memphis police officers make on average 43 percent less base salary than Austin police officers after their first year and also face cuts to their medical benefits, time off, and other benefits (Thompson, 2014). It is reasonable to suggests police officers and other emergency service providers experience higher rates of psychological trauma and stress leading to earlier morbidity and mortality than premature death by gunshots or other physical trauma. The daily experience of increased stressors on law enforcement officers place the sympathetic nervous system into a constant rollercoaster ride of fight or flight responses that place excessive where on the cardiovascular and central nervous systems. In an effort to resolve the conflict of maintaining homeostasis and to cope with the stress and trauma of work, officers may experience adverse health conditions such as insomnia, alcohol use disorder, depression, chronic fatigue, and hypertension (Stevens, 2008). Van Der Kolk (2014) identifies the unbearable and intolerable nature of trauma, which has the potential to have primary and secondary effects on those who experience the trauma and others indirectly exposed to it such as spouses and children. In order to care for the community, law enforcement officers need to have assistance afforded and guaranteed to them.
Elvin Semrad discouraged scholarly textbook readings for his residents during their first year in an effort to prevent perceptions of reality from becoming obscured by psychiatric diagnosis (Van Der Kolk, 2014, p. 26). Law enforcement agencies can benefit from putting scholarly literature down for a brief time and look around without trying to assign labels and categories of their officers and see that many face stressors daily and should be afforded the upmost care. Psychology has expanded greatly in modern times and new pharmacological treatments are available that many often may seek out for help instead of talking through stressors. Encouraging support groups for traumatic events and stress debriefings with avenues to gain time off work to recover psychologically without stigmatization is necessary with the events officers face on a routine and daily basis. Health insurance should provide adequate coverage for mental health care and physical conditioning. Cardiovascular exercise has great potential to lower stress levels in officers and to burn off hormones from heightened calls. With departments being requested to do more with less it is imperative that officers do not face the brunt of budget restrictions and instead be afforded every opportunity to succeed without worrying about overtime to pay bills or second jobs to gain better medical coverage.
References
Stevens, D. (2008). Police Officer Stress Sources and Solutions. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson,
Prentice Hall.
Thompson, A. (2014). You won’t believe what Austin Texas is offering Memphis officers. WREG
Memphis. Retrieved from http://www.wreg.com
Van Der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of
Trauma. New York, NY: Penguin Random House Publishing.