NCJ Number
96632
Journal
Police Chief Volume: 52 Issue: 2 Dated: (February 1985) Pages: 31-40,45-58
Editor(s)
J W Sterling,
C E Higginbotham
Date Published
1985
Length
24 pages
Annotation
The nine articles in this series discuss the benefits of employee assistance plans for police managers, stress management strategies, pension plan design, research on line-of-duty deaths of State law enforcement officers, and support for wives and children of slain officers.
Abstract
The first two articles survey the growth of employee assistance programs in the private and public sectors, detailing their benefits in terms of employee morale, greater productivity, and increased loyalty to the organization. Strategies implemented by the Arizona Department of Public Safety to retrain officers who had been targets of citizen complaints in lieu of termination are described. In the stress management area, articles cover the Los Angeles Police Department's home visit program designed to help distanced and injured employees and the Boston Police's alcoholism treatment and peer counseling projects. Another author uses the analogy of a pressure cooker to present a model for managing long-term stress. A discussion of police pension plans addresses unfunded liability, defined contribution plans, and ways to obtain increased flexibility. Based on data from the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program, one report summarizes information on line-of-duty deaths of State police and highway patrol officers from 1976 through 1982, focusing on where and how the officers died, their age, and years of experience. Finally guidelines on support for widows and families of public safety employees developed by the Hennepin County Chiefs of Police Association (Minnesota) are presented.