NCJ Number
136831
Journal
Police Studies Volume: 14 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1991) Pages: 176-187
Date Published
1991
Length
12 pages
Annotation
Since fear may contribute to stress in police officers, this study examined the nature of the latent structure of fears in police recruits in Australia.
Abstract
The sample consisted of 303 recruits from the Queensland Police Academy. The recruits, who had undergone 6 months of training as part of a 12-month course, completed the forms voluntarily. The Perceptions of Police Work Questionnaire was constructed for the study. It is a 26-item fear schedule that uses scales that range from 0 (no fear) to 7 (severe fear). The themes of questionnaire items relate to situations that operational police may encounter. A factor analysis identified five factors that relate to fear: physical danger, mutilated/dead bodies, public crime, organizational fears, and court/interpersonal situations. Age was found to correlate poorly with the factor scores. These findings provide support for the validity of an occupation-fears construct in the context of police work. Recruits who reported intense and generalized fears may be at risk for the development of chronic stress reactions, although a future study must determine whether or not fear is a predictor of stress. The construct of occupational fear was apparently distinct from the fear-of-crime construct. The intensity of organizational fears in recruits might be reduced if police organizations provide officers with accurate information about organizational procedures such as internal investigations. 2 tables and 12 references (Author abstract modified)