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14 Police Stud.: Int'l Rev. Police Dev. 153 (1991)
Stressors Facing Australian Police in the 1990s

handle is hein.journals/polic14 and id is 163 raw text is: Stressors Facing Australian Police in the 1990s Detective Constable Greg Coman, M.Sc., Australian Federal Police, Melbourne, Australia and Barry Evans, Ph.D., Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Abstract A number of researchers in the United States and the United Kingdom have categorised the occupational stressors experienced by police officers. These studies have led to contradic- tory assertions about the stressfulness of police work, compared with other occupational groups. Some researchers have asserted that policing is a highly stressful occupation, while others have concluded that police work is no more stressful than many other occupations. The present study examined the range of oc- cupational activities experienced by Austra- lian police personnel with officers reporting not only the frequency of occurrence of work- related events but their perceptions of the relative stressfulness of each of these. Occupa- tional events reported by officers were then categorized as either Job Content or Job Con- text stressors. Job content stressors derive from the nature of the work done by police of- ficers, while job context stressors derive from the nature of the organisation in which officers work. The data suggest that Australian police of- ficers, like their counterparts in the United States and the United Kingdom, face a number of job context events, such as organisational structure and communication, supervisory practices, career pathing concerns, which are similar to the organisational stresses reported by many work groups. Police officers also work in a professional environment which stresses emotional detachment from others, suspicious- ness toward the community and cynicism regarding the job. In addition, police face the daily prospect of being exposed to dangerous, uncontrolled and anxiety-provoking situations which may result in death or physical injury to officers or inno- cent bystanders. These acute stressors may compound the already high level of stress of- ficers feel as a result of daily hassles in the job. This combination of Job Context and Job Con- tent stressors makes policing a potentially highly stressful occupation. Much research has been conducted in recent years to determine the stressors of police work (Davidson & Veno, 1980; Billings & Moos, 1982; Cooper, Davidson & Robinson, 1982; Arsenault & Dolan, 1983; Sewell, 1983; Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1987; Evans & Coman, 1988). The range of studies which have examined the sources of police stress have drawn contradictory conclusions. On the one hand, some researchers have concluded that police work is a high stress occupation (David- son & Veno, 1980; Cooper et al. 1982). In 1978, for example, Selye wrote (police work) ranks as one of the most hazardous (occupations), even exceeding the formidable stresses and strains of air traffic control (Selye, 1978, p. 7). Studies which have compared police personnel with other occupational groups suggest that in general police work involves no more stress than many other occupations (Lester & Gallagher, 1980; Seweli, 1983; Lidgard, 1986). A thorough review of the literature provides evidence to support the conclusion that police work can be a highly stressful occupation, because of characteristics of their job demands and the organisational context in which of- ficers are required to perform their duties. One difficulty facing the police stress re- searcher has been to determine how to cate-

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