NCJ Number
124584
Date Published
1990
Length
120 pages
Annotation
This study identifies the management practices and organizational factors that cause stress among police officers and proposes management strategies for developing a healthy workplace.
Abstract
This report shifts the emphasis from the person-centered stress management and intervention programs of the psychologists to the organization-centered strategies of management. The report's basic premises are that personal stress is often the symptom of an unhealthy workplace and the best stress management approach is to identify the organizational stressors, eliminate them, and work in harmony with the employees in developing a healthy workplace environment. The following management practices and organizational characteristics are identified as contributing to police stress: autocratic quasi-paramilitaristic model; hierarchical structure; poor supervision; lack of employee input into policy and decisionmaking; excessive paperwork; lack of administrative support; role conflict and ambiguity; inadequate pay and resources; adverse work schedules; boredom; and unfair discipline, performance evaluation, and promotion practices. An increased educational level among officers contributes to the stress related to management practices. Proposed management strategies are examining the workplace, believing in the mission, living the organizational values, encouraging upward communication, increasing frontline autonomy, ensuring fairness, and caring about people. Sample police organizational values, techniques for encouraging upward communication, model stress management training curriculum, 95 references.