Hypothesis: Police officers do not receive individual attention regarding their mental stability following a life threatening scenario that calls for instantaneous reactions.
Hypothesis 2: Police officer’s choose not receive individual attention regarding their mental stability following a life threatening scenario because they fear for lack of confidentiality or perception of weakness.
It seems counterintuitive that we allow ordinary individuals to enter harmful, chaotic environments that ultimately affect both their physical and mental health in an effort to protect other people. And to then assume, that after they endure life altering events, that they will either return to their former lives or even maintain a normal, healthy lifestyle without any effect upon themselves or their family members. (Expansion of my premise)
Short Arguments:
- “Why Departments Need to Develop Mental Health Programs for Cops“
The Essential Content of the Article: This article examines the idea that in a predominantly male culture that emphasizes toughness and a suck-it-up mentality, officers are forced to withhold their emotions and resort to detrimental methods of coping with their stress, including alcoholism, drug use, risk-taking behaviors, etc.
What it Proves: An officers health, confined by cultural beliefs, is not being dealt with in a healthy, productive matter.
- “In a predominantly male culture emphasizing toughness and a shrug-it-off, suck-it-up mentality, officers are forced to keep their feelings to themselves and resort to unhealthy methods of coping, which result in negative outcomes (such as alcohol abuse, risk-taking behaviors, etc.”
- “Research has shown time and time again that police officer occupational stress is directly related to higher rates of heart disease, divorce, sick days taken, alcohol abuse, and major psychological illnesses such as Acute Stress Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, and Anxiety Disorders.”
- Peers and supervisors should be trained to recognize an officer in distress, especially after an investigation is over.
- The system of protecting our officers is broken, as it often fails to help officers by a lack of effort to do so.
- Sure, there are a significant number of peer support programs in use by police departments throughout the USA and internationally, but not everywhere. Some departments still fail to recognize and help officers cope with their mental complications.
- Just because an officer says that is “fine” doesn’t mean that it is going to stay that way. Perhaps he is lying to begin with.
- Some officers oppress their true feelings because of the societal construct that men should not express their emotions.
- The theory that all men should retrain their feelings is ludicrous because it is shown statistically that people who bottle up their problems can be a detriment to themselves or the people around them.
- It is important to get treatment for officers, as certain problems could develop into more serious mental illnesses.
- “PTSD Symptoms in Suburban Police Officers”
The Essential Content of the Article: This article focuses on a study conducted by Cleveland State University that says 63% out of the 100 suburban cops surveyed stated that a critical debriefing period would be beneficial following an extremely stressful event related to duty. This study is dedicated to help officers, almost immediately, following an incident such as a mass shooting.
What it Proves: This survey is extremely useful because it supports my claim that officers are not given the proper care needed to maintain a level of stability in a highly stressful job. There is obviously a major flaw with law enforcement and I intend to expose this flaw by using these statistics.
- “Many subjects said that they did not have much trust in their Employee Assistance Programs. The attitude seemed to be related to past experience and concern about not being understood by a superior when stress-related behaviors developed.”
- States should require officers to talk with trained professionals at least once a week. This could be used as a debriefing period and a step away from work.
- Employee Assistant Programs should consist of retired officers who have dealt with similar problems in their line of duty.
- It doesn’t take much for an officer to go from a simple situation to a high stakes, life threatening situation.
- The benefits of helping an officer cope with their line of duty the first few years far outweighs the cost of helping veterans or retired officers down the road.
- Though many officers never encounter a life threatening situation, psychologists should still be required, as they could still suffer from high levels of stress.
Definition Essay: Life threatening scenario. Before I go into a Police officers health, I need to define life threatening scenarios. What makes a situation dangerous and/or more dangerous than another scenario? Perhaps pulling over a car and walking up to the window is equally as dangerous as approaching an active shootout with a criminal. I want to examine how these unrelated scenarios are similar.
Cause/Effect: I might need to demonstrate by research that when officers experience a highly stressful event, an officer may indulge is bad habits such as excessive alcohol or drug use, while their occupations demands their attention to the next case. This would demonstrate that we need to give individual attention to officers if we ever hope to avoid health disparities among police officers.
Cause/ Effect source: http://www.milestonegroupnj.com/?page_id=348
Rebuttal Arguments:
- Only police officers working in poorer neighborhoods or those with higher crime rates experience physical danger on an almost daily basis, which trumps the necessity of health care services for all officers nationwide.
- Statistics show that during a career, 95 percent of officers will never have to use deadly physical force.
- New advancements in medication, such as Xanax or Valium (taken only as prescribed), help officers cope with many distressing situations, which eliminates the need for public health services or psychiatrists.
Opening Strong:
Alternate first sentence: (Find story)… Officer (find name) is proud to pin the badge of the (find city) Police Department to her dress blues, but since she discharged her service revolver last April, the badge reminds her that she mortally wounded a teenager in the line of duty.
A police officer’s badge symbolizes an oath to serve and protect the people of this country, but for distressed police officer’s, a badge reminds them of an internal struggle caused by a deeply unnerving event in their line of duty. A nationwide study conducted from 2008-2012 by Pamela Kulbarsh, a psychiatric nurse for over 25 years and a member of San Diego’s Psychiatric Emergency Response Team, found that nearly 150,000 officers have experienced symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, not to mention the officers who, because of the stigma of appearing weak, have yet to come forward with their symptoms. But when officers decide to confront their physiological problems, Kulbarsh found that the men in blue were being deprived of a stable support system to help guide them in the right direction. For years, we have ignored the calls for help from the guardians of our safety who have pledged to protect our nation.
Current State of the Research Paper: I am feeling pretty good about the evidence I have gathered thus far. I think my opinion has solidified by the more research I have done. I anticipate that my eventual outcome will be that officers are naturally prone to stress by the confines of their job, but working with them could help manage their anxieties. I am basing on my paper on the premise that everybody dies, but not everybody lives. Officers should be provided access to more helpful services to help them cope with work, while also letting them live a normal, heathy life. We need to draw the line between work and living life.
The only problem I am really experiencing is the idea that we learned in class about the black and white shoe. I want my conclusion to be something out the ordinary. I do not want to be confined to black and white. I am having trouble thinking outside the box. I hope, with the more research I acquire, that i will be able to draw a more colorful conclusion.
Rowan Counterintuitive 