The Thin Blue Line: An analysis of stress and police work — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
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Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

The Thin Blue Line: An analysis of stress and police work

Name: Madelin Spagnola
Major: Psychology and Criminal Justice
Hometown: Oak Forest, IL
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Senior thesis

Abstract

Policing is one of the most stressful jobs in American society. Over 25% of all law enforcement personnel show symptoms of major depressive disorder, while only 20% of all police organizations have any semblance of stress management programs. Law enforcement officers see traumatic incidents daily that do not get resolved. While responding to these events, police also try to balance between citizen and soldier, which can lead to disrupting their home and familial lives. Stressful incidents often go unchecked by administration. Most administrative officers ignore significant and obvious signs of posttraumatic stress and depression amongst their employees, and encourage them to deal with the trauma internally as opposed to seeking psychiatric help. Without the proper guidance, police have poor coping mechanisms. Due to the inability to appropriately cope with the trauma they experience on the job, police often experience burnout, cynicism, paranoia, aggression, and other negative emotions perpetrated by deep and surface acting. There are thoughtful solutions to police stress. The solutions include, administrative training in dealing with trauma, departmental psychologists, and group therapies. Sociological theories that are used to explain police stress and coping mechanisms are feminist theory, emotional labor theory, and subcultural theory. Within these theories, solutions to police stress can be found.Unfortunately for police stress, the masculine subculture of policing encourages the blue wall of silence. Behind the blue wall of silence, police suffer on thin ice, trying to balance their police roles and citizen roles while suffering through stress on the job.

Poster file