This thesis examines the idea that police officers have supportive factors in their lives which influence coping mechanisms used to handle occupational stress. This idea comes from police culture literature which suggests that officers are encouraged to use maladaptive coping strategies like drinking and emotional suppression to deal with stress. Additional research on management support and family support are introduced as alternative supportive factors which can promote the use of adaptive coping like agency offered services and programs. This thesis uses data from “Work and Family Services for Law Enforcement Personnel in the United States” (Robert, O’Quin, & Kennedy, 2000). A subset of questionnaire items and officer responses are coded and run through statistical analysis including linear regression and logistic regression. Finally, findings are discussed and future research on the topic is suggested.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether police officers perceive higher education to be important in improving their job performance and promotional opportunities, whether the perception of higher education varied by several independent variables, and the types of suggestions that officers might have for improving the college curriculum. Independent variables included gender, age, level of education, type of police agency, academic major, years of service as a police officer, and job duty. The dependent variable was scores on 3 dimensions: general attitude toward higher education, perceived utility of a criminal justice related degree, and career-related competencies. A 34- item survey was administered to police officers from five departments in Spring 2017. There was a 40.53% response rate with a total of 216 completed surveys. Descriptive statistics, independent-samples t tests, one way analysis of variance tests, and Pearson r coefficients revealed a mixed view of the perceived value of higher education. Officers who had completed bachelor's degrees and those officers employed by municipal agencies had a significantly more positive perception of higher education. No significant differences were found between the independent variables and the perceived value of a criminal justice related degree or the importance of career-related competencies. This study also found several common suggestions for improvement to the higher education curriculum, including more hands-on experience, instructors with experience as law enforcement officers, and improved writing and interpersonal communication skills.

Syftet med förekommande studie var att undersöka om polisens attityder till två olika typer av brottslingar, ekobrottslingar respektive sexualbrottslingar skiljde sig åt och om attityden till dessa brottslingar påverkade deras inställning till vilken förhörsstil som borde användas samt om polisen förespråkade en mer dominant förhörsstil vid förhör med misstänkta för sexualbrott jämfört med misstänkta för ekobrott. För att kunna besvara studiens frågeställningar användes en kvantitativ metod med en mellangruppsdesign. En webbenkät i två olika versioner användes, en för ekobrottslingar och en för sexualbrottslingar. Varje enkät bestod sedan av två delar, en som avsåg attityder och en som avsåg förhör. 55 poliser deltog i studien och fördelades genom ett slumpmässigt urval till respektive betingelse. Resultaten visade att det inte fanns några signifikanta skillnader i polisens attityder till ekobrottslingar respektive sexualbrottslingar, inte heller förespråkade polisen en specifik förhörsstil för någon av brottstyperna. Dock visade resultaten på en signifikant prediktion mellan attityd och förhörsstil när det gäller sexualbrottslingar men inte för ekobrottslingar, vilket innebär att attityd predicerar förhörsstilen för sexualbrottslingar men inte för ekobrottslingar. / The purpose of this study was to investigate whether police attitudes towards two different types of offenders, economic offenders and sex offenders differed and whether the attitudes towards these offenders influenced their choice of interrogation style and if the police advocated a more dominant interrogation style when questioning suspects for sexual offences compared to suspects of economic offences. In order to answer the study's questions, a quantitative method was used with a between group design. One online survey in two different versions were used, one for economic offenders and one for sex offenders. Each survey then consisted of two parts, one related to attitudes and one related to interrogation. 55 police officers participated in the study and were distributed by random sampling to each condition. The results showed that there were no significant differences in police officer´s attitudes between economic offenders and sexual offenders, nor did the police officer´s advocate a certain interrogation style for any of the crime types. But the results showed a significant prediction between attitude and interrogation style when it comes to sex offenders but not to economic offenders, which means that attitude predict the interrogation style for sex offenders but not for economic offenders.

This case study discusses rape theories by performing a case study of a convicted serial rapist, hereafter referred to as “Carl Criminal.” This pseudonym has been used throughout this research effort in order to avoid the additional contributing to the celebrity status of the true rapist who has committed these vicious sexual assaults. Locations have also been changed in order to prevent contribution of further clues that may help identify the rapist and avoid embarrassment, humiliation, and further mental anguish for the rape victims. On January 18, 1999, Carl Criminal, a 38-year-old white male Sheriff’s Deputy with a local sheriff’s office was arrested and initially charged with five counts of aggravated rape. The charges were later amended to include a sixth charge of aggravated rape. At the time of his arrest, Carl Criminal was a veteran law enforcement officer for over nineteen years and had served as a plainclothes sergeant with the Juvenile Division. Carl Criminal’s arrest ended an extensive years-long rape task force investigation into a series of rapes that occurred between 1986 and 1997. Carl Criminal, upon being interviewed at his place of incarceration, admitted that he committed eleven rapes during the period of his criminal activity while serving as a sheriff’s deputy. This research project explores Carl Criminal’s history and chronicles his career as a law enforcement officer and as a rapist. The project represents a searched for possible explanations, causation, and motivation for his criminal behavior. This study attempts to dissect his aberrant behavior and analyze potential causes related to his nurturing. Furthermore, the study examines his relationships and attempted to discern early patterns of social deviance. Carl Criminal himself stated, “I wish someone could tell me what’s wrong with me.” This research study attempts to furnish answers to his question. This case study explores Carl Criminal’s current thoughts regarding the trauma he brought to his victims’ lives. Carl Criminal lamented the pain he now realizes his victims experienced. The research identified incidents in Carl Criminal’s youth that may now serve as markers to assist in identifying potential criminal behavior in the lives of other adolescents.

This paper examines some causes of strain and frustration among police officers. Previous research suggests that police officers sufferfromthe lack of communication and support from their community. The failure of communication has caused turmoil in the past between communities and their police. A possible solution is community policing. Community policing is supposed to establish communication between the public and the police. Causes of strain and frustration among the police are discussed along with the possible benefits of community policing. Research has shown that community police officers suffer less strain and frustration than their brethren. On this premise a quantitative examination a police force in Northumbria, England was conducted. The quantitative analysis focuses on two groups; community police officers and police officers not involved in community policing.

The purpose of this dissertation is to identify an optimum ratio of police officers to city residents for the purpose of reducing year-to-year crime rates in cities with populations between 25,000 and 999,999. Current research in this area focuses on the impact of the number of police officers on overall crime rates. However, that body of research does not distinguish the impacts found in minimally-staffed, moderately-staffed, and highly-staffed agencies. By examining each of these three groups separately, a statistically significant relationship was determined to exist between per capita staffing levels and short-term property crime reduction for agencies with 1.50 to 2.75 police officers per 1,000 residents. No such relationship existed for agencies with fewer than 1.50 officers or greater than 2.75 officers per 1,000 residents. There was no identifiable relationship between staffing levels and violent crime categories. As a result of this finding, an optimum staffing range has been identified for local law enforcement agencies seeking to make immediate, short-term impacts on property crime.

A Polícia Militar, cuja missão divulgada oficialmente é a de tutela da ordem jurídica, assegurando a tranquilidade pública e a proteção da sociedade contra as violações e malefícios\", tem crescido como tema de discussão tanto na mídia como nos meios acadêmicos nos últimos anos por sua relevância na vida das pessoas e relação com as questões de segurança pública. Dados sobre violência policial de inúmeros orgãos, pesquisas acadêmicas no assunto, e a própria preocupação manifesta de autoridades governamentais de segurança pública tornam quase que inevitável que essas discussões vinculem a polícia à violência. Este trabalho teve como objetivo estudar os efeitos de reconhecimento e desconhecimento das relações no trabalho que permearam o discurso de um grupo de soldados da polícia militar: como estes falaram de seu trabalho e através desta fala posicionaram-se e posicionaram sua clientela e sua hierarquia. Por conta da importância dos dados mencionados, buscou-se também analisar que lugar a violência ocupou neste discurso. Dez soldados de um mesmo batalhão da polícia militar do Estado de São Paulo, sendo estes nove homens e uma mulher, foram entrevistados no próprio local de trabalho acerca de seu trabalho e das pessoas com quem se relacionavam. Suas entrevistas transcritas foram analisadas através da Análise Institucional do Discurso a fim de configurar um sujeito soldado policial militar. O objeto da análise do discurso foi a articulação entre o texto e o lugar social. Através destas análises, percebemos que uma noção de ser o faz tudo deslizou para o cuidado de um tipo específico de clientela, a população despossuída, e culminou com a proteção da vida do próprio policial policial como foco último do trabalho do PM. A farda se sobrepôs ao indivíduo marcando com toda a força a matriz institucional desse sujeito (do discurso). Não é uma questão de ser vítima da farda, mas de, pressupondo-se só na linha de frente, conduta justificada, legitimada e reforçada pelo discurso que indissocia meliante e clientela, passa a ser natural que o PM então coloque-se no lugar de alvo e que a ajuda e proteção ao amigo de farda torne-se legitimamente o foco de seu trabalho. O estressante do trabalho do PM residia justamente nesta inversão quando PM tornava-se alvo. E, a regra, ponto de tensão para que o PM se defenda, abre brecha para uma virada do cumprimento da lei para o crime como caminho natural a seguir e deslocado do indivídio. Um caminho para a violência / The Military Police, whose mission as officially claimed is to safeguard the legal order, assuring public peace and protecting the society against violations and wrongdoings, has increasingly appeared as a theme of discussion in the media as well as in the academia in the last years due to its relevance to peoples lives and its relation to public safety issues. Police violence data from many organizations, academic research e the manifest concern from government authorities in public security make it almost inevitable for these discussions to relate police and violence. This research aims at studying the effects of recognition and disowning of the relationships in the job that permeated the discourse of a group of soldiers from the military policy: how they spoke of their job and through this speech positioned themselves and their clientele and hierarchy. Due to the importance of the mentioned data, the potential place that violence occupied in this discourse was subject of study as well. Ten soldiers; nine men and one woman, from the same battalion of the Military Police from the State of São Paulo were interviewed in the workplace about their jobs and the people they relate to in doing so. The transcribed interviews were analyzed through the Institutional Discourse Analyses to configure a military police soldier subject. The object of discourse analyses was the articulation between the text and the social place. Through these analyzes, we could see that a do it all notion slid to become the care of a certain type of clientele, the dispossessed, and culminated to the protection of the life of the police officer him or herself as the ultimate focus of the police officers job. The uniform overlapped the individual with the strength of the institutional matrix within this (discourse) subject. Its not a matter of being a victim of the uniform, but, assuming a solitude in the front line, a justified and rationalized conduct, also reinforced by the discourse that doesnt differ criminal from clientele, its naturalized that the military police officer/soldier puts him or herself in the position of a target so that helping and protecting the uniform pal becomes legitimately the focus of the job. The stressful in the job is exactly this inversion of positions when the soldier becomes the target. And the rules and procedures, source of tension for the police officer to defend him/herself, give license for the mode turn from law abiding to crime, a natural path to follow, detached from the individual and excused by the uniform. A path to violence

<p>This study was undertaken to determine the relationship between the emotional intelligence and burnout levels of police constables of the South African Police Service<br /> (SAPS) in the Western Cape. The field work of constables includes situations in which police officers need to make quick decisions involving life and death.</p>

Situationer där polisen skjuter kan uppstå till följd av att gärningsmän uppvisar provokativa suicidbeteenden. Detta fenomen är känt som suicide by cop (SbC) och har visat sig utgöra en betydande andel av undersökta skjuthändelser i Nordamerika. Studien syftar till att ge en deskriptiv bild av SbC i Sverige utifrån förekomst och karakteristika gällande situationer och gärningsmän, samt att beskriva hur dessa händelser kan upplevas och hanteras av poliser. Skjuthändelser som inträffat under tidsperioden 2005-2009 granskades och intervjuer genomfördes med tio poliser som upplevt SbC-händelser. Resultatet visade att SbC svarade för 26 % av skjuthändelserna. Intervjuade poliser upplevde ofta gärningsmännen som både aggressiva och suicidala och en osäkerhet över vem som egentligen haft kontroll över situationen var att betrakta som en central problematik. Vidare beskrevs akuta stressreaktioner och posttraumatiska minnen till följd av dessa händelser. Ökad kunskap om psykologin bakom SbC är att betrakta som viktigt för hanteringen av dessa incidenter. / Officer-involved shootings (OIS) sometimes occur as a result of provocative and suicidal behavior among offenders. This phenomenon, known as suicide by cop (SbC), has been shown to represent a significant part of OIS-cases in North American samples. This study aims to provide a descriptive picture of SbC in Sweden based on frequency and characteristics of situations and offenders. It also aims to describe how SbC can be experienced and handled by police officers. OIS-cases that occurred during 2005-2009 were investigated and ten officers were interviewed. Results showed that SbC accounted for 26 % of the OIS-cases. Interviewed officers often perceived perpetrators as both aggressive and suicidal and an uncertainty over who actually had control was considered a key issue. Officers also reported acute stress reactions and posttraumatic memories as a result of SbC. Increased knowledge about the psychology of SbC is considered as an important factor for dealing with SbC-situations.

<p>This study was undertaken to determine the relationship between the emotional intelligence and burnout levels of police constables of the South African Police Service<br /> (SAPS) in the Western Cape. The field work of constables includes situations in which police officers need to make quick decisions involving life and death.</p>