Trauma and critical incident exposure in law enforcement

2022 ◽  
pp. 87-111
Author(s):  
Lea Katrine Jørgensen ◽  
Ask Elklit
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Critical Incident

Charting a Course for Body-Worn Cameras in the Twenty-First Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-138
Author(s):  
Michael D. White ◽  
Aili Malm
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
First Century ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Diffusion Characteristics ◽  
The Us ◽  
Practice Implementation

There are two objectives in this chapter. The first is a forward-looking review of the next set of challenges for BWC adopters. These challenges span the factors that can influence diffusion (characteristics of the innovation, innovators, and environment) and center on both human and technological elements of a BWC program. The authors assess the next set of human-based challenges with BWCs, such as addressing activation compliance (and dealing with low-end activators), addressing controversies surrounding the public release of video and officers’ authority to review video after a critical incident (i.e., a shooting), managing citizens’ and other nonusers’ expectations of the technology (handling the onset of a “CSI effect” with BWCs, where if there is no video, then it did not happen), and being responsive to changing laws on evidence, privacy, and access to BWC footage. The authors also consider emerging technological innovations such as automatic activation, the integration of BWCs and facial recognition, and the role and use of “big data” with BWCs. The second objective centers on planning and implementation. More specifically, the authors delve into how law enforcement agencies can navigate the well-known and newly emerging challenges surrounding BWCs in order optimize the likelihood of achieving positive outcomes. In particular, they focus on a “best-practice” implementation guide developed by the US Department of Justice, called the “Law Enforcement Implementation Checklist.” The chapter concludes with a few important takeaway messages regarding the future of BWCs in policing.

Employee Assistance Programs

2017 ◽  
pp. 199-219
Author(s):  
Evan M. Axelrod
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Return On Investment ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Public Safety ◽  
Law Enforcement Officers ◽  
Psychological Services ◽  
Employee Assistance Programs ◽  
Employee Assistance ◽  
Assistance Programs ◽  
The Public

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce and explore counseling and psychological services for law enforcement officers that extend beyond critical incident interventions. In particular, this chapter focuses on Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), including discussion of how such programs have become an essential tool in supporting and sustaining law enforcement officers, their families, the agencies they work for, and the communities they serve. This chapter discusses what an EAP is, the benefits of EAPs, and the return on investment that public safety agencies can expect when utilizing an EAP. Relevant topics such as confidentiality, internal vs. external EAPs, and the need for specialized EAPs for public safety agencies are addressed. Finally, the chapter also explores non-traditional services that can be offered through EAPs to assist public safety agencies in supporting and sustaining their personnel in meeting their mission of serving the public.

Critical Incident Stress Debriefing and Law Enforcement: An Evaluative Review

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abigail S. Malcolm ◽  
Jessica Seaton ◽  
Aimee Perera ◽  
Donald C. Sheehan ◽  
Vincent B. Van Hasselt
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Critical Incident Stress Debriefing ◽  
Critical Incident Stress ◽  
Stress Debriefing

Police-Media Relations at Critical Incidents: Interviews from Oklahoma City

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tory J. Caeti ◽  
John Liederbach ◽  
Steven S. Bellew
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Critical Incidents ◽  
Hazardous Materials ◽  
Oklahoma City ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Oklahoma City Bombing ◽  
Media Relations ◽  
The Media ◽  
Post September 11

The policing of critical incident scenes, including natural disasters, hazardous materials spills, hostage situations, and terrorist attacks, has become an especially salient topic in the post-September 11 environment. Given the attention-grabbing nature of these events, police administrators are often faced with the task of building and maintaining relationships with members of the media at these scenes, primarily reporters and their crews who often pursue goals that are in direct conflict with those of law enforcement. This article examines the issues related to police—media relations at critical incident scenes using interview data from subjects involved in policing the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing and the related trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. These interviews provide a context for the presentation of guidelines important to police administrators who must be able to forge successful relationships with the media at critical incidents.

Attitudes of police officers toward offenders: implications for future training

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Soares Cunha ◽  
Rui Abrunhosa Gonçalves
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Graduate Students ◽  
Marital Status ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Correctional Officers ◽  
Critical Incident Technique ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Police Service

Purpose Police officers’ attitudes toward criminals are critical to the justice system’s response to crime. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the attitudes toward offenders (ATOs) among police officers. Design/methodology/approach To assess police officers ATOs, the authors adapted the Attitudes Toward Prisoner scale to produce the ATO scale. The scale was completed by 431 male police officers in a Portuguese police institution. Findings The results revealed that police officers hold more negative ATOs than correctional officers and graduate students. Moreover, the results revealed significant differences in average ATO scores according to police officers’ age, years of service, marital status and education; namely, police officers who were older, married, less educated, and with more years of police service had more positive ATOs. However, the results revealed that these demographic factors had a limited value in predicting attitudes, as none of them emerged as a predictor of ATOs. Originality/value Nonetheless, considering the relevance of attitudes in law enforcement procedures, the implications for training police officers are provided, specifically using critical incident technique strategies.

Critical Incident Management and Geographically–Based Systems

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 69-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Webb ◽  
David R. Hoffpauir
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Strong Dependence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Incident Management ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Exciting Field ◽  
Critical Incident Management ◽  
Law Enforcement Management

In the United States there is a strong dependence on decentralized policing services, distributed by thousands of police departments. As a primary police professional development management institute in the United States, the Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas (LEMIT) identified that there existed a paucity of management development opportunities for police command staff engaged in critical incident management. This paper describes how LEMIT met this challenge and became a leading U.S. institute in this exciting field of operation.

Apprehended Without Warrant

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (10) ◽  
pp. 1337-1353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine M. Newbold ◽  
Jeffrey M. Lohr ◽  
Richard Gist
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Emergency Services ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
Critical Incident Stress Debriefing ◽  
Critical Incident Stress ◽  
Stress Debriefing ◽  
Junk Science

The practice of professional psychology was founded on empirical science. Subsequent development of the profession reveals a gap that is partially the result of the popularization of junk science in legal and judicial domains. A greater threat comes from pseudoscience, which presents serious professional issues for those who work in trauma-related emergency services and law enforcement. The most widely promoted service is Critical Incident Stress Debriefing and Management, but scientific evidence does not justify its application. The authors describe the promotion and implementation of these services within the FBI and the professional difficulties that ensued. They also provide suggestions as to how such difficulties could have been avoided and apply them to other domains of law enforcement.

scholarly journals Decision Inertia in Critical Incidents

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Power ◽  
Laurence Alison
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Critical Incidents ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Psychological Process ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Option Generation ◽  
Political Security ◽  
Military Law ◽  
Future Outcomes

Abstract. When presented with competing options, critical incident decision makers often struggle to commit to a choice (in particular when all options appear to yield negative consequences). Despite being motivated to take action in disasters, terrorism, major investigations, and complex political interventions, decision makers can become inert, looping between phases of situation assessment, option generation, and option evaluation. This “looping” is functionally redundant when it persists until they have lost the opportunity to take action. We define this as “decision inertia”: the result of a process of (redundant) deliberation over possible options and in the absence of any further useful information. In the context of critical incidents (political, security, military, law enforcement) we have discovered that rather than disengaging and avoiding difficult choices, decision makers are acutely aware of the negative consequences that might arise if they failed to decide (i.e., the incident would escalate). The sensitization to possible future outcomes leads to intense deliberation over possible choices and their consequences and, ultimately, can result in a failure to take any action in time (or at all). We (i) discuss decision inertia as a novel psychological process of redundant deliberation during crises; (ii) define the concept and discuss the emerging studies in support of our tentative hypotheses regarding how the cognitively active process of deliberation can result in complete behavioral inactivity; and (iii) suggest recommendations and interventions for combatting inertia.

Posttraumatic Growth in Relation to the Frequency and Severity of Traumatic Experiences Among Police Officers in Small to Midsize Departments

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 1247-1260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian A. Chopko ◽  
Patrick A. Palmieri ◽  
Richard E. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Alcohol Use ◽  
Posttraumatic Growth ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Law Enforcement Officers ◽  
Traumatic Experiences ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Trauma Severity ◽  
Posttraumatic Growth Inventory

The Critical Incident History Questionnaire (CIHQ) measures, through multiple measurement methods, the severity and frequency of traumatic events experienced by law enforcement officers. We, however, found no studies utilizing the CIHQ to examine posttraumatic growth (PTG) as measured by the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory. The purpose of this brief report was to assess the strength and direction of the relationships between PTG with trauma frequency, trauma severity, and health variables, including subjective traumatic stress, relationship stress, nontraumatic work stress, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depression, and alcohol use among law enforcement officers ( N = 193) from small and midsize agencies. In addition, we sought to explore differences between cognitive and behavioral PTG. Based on results from bivariate and multivariate analyses, we found that an idiosyncratic view of trauma severity shaped by personal experience demonstrated the strongest relationship with PTG among the frequency and severity variables and that increased PTG was not associated with reduced psychological distress. Alcohol use, a variable that is assessed primarily through behaviors compared with cognitions, was not significantly associated with PTG. Overall, the findings of this study demonstrate the importance for future research to consider both the frequency and severity of trauma exposure in the development of PTG and its impact on health outcomes.

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