NCJ Number
99632
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 13 Issue: 6 Dated: (1985) Pages: 501-512
Date Published
1985
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This article examines what appears to be an original and recent strategy of police professionalization in the United States -- an emphasis on police stress as a means of gaining professional legitmacy and prestige as well as a means of bring coherence to a number of conceptions surrounding the tasks of, and role expectations for police.
Abstract
A focus on police stress provides a vehicle for organizing the disparate crime control and peacekeeping elements of law enforcement into a single whole. Because the notions of stress, danger, and service are concepts with which the public are readily able to sympathize and because the public recognizes the stress-related aspects of traditional professions such as medicine, law, and the ministry, especially the responsibility of those in these professions for the lives and welfare of others, the idea of police stress would seem to enhance the public's acceptance of the police claim to professional status. Unfortunately, the social and political conditions underlying police work inhibit such acceptance. (Author abstract)