How Law Enforcement Culture Plays into Stress and Wellness

• NCJ Number: 254524
• Author(s): John Violanti; Wendy Stiver; Dan Grupe
• Date Published: January 2020
• Length: 1 page
• Agencies: NIJ
• Publication Type: Issue Overview

Annotation

In this video (2 minutes and 22 seconds), John Violanti, Professor at the University at Buffalo; Wendy Stiver, a Major in the Dayton (Ohio) Police Department; and Dan Grupe, Associate Scientist at the University of Wisconsin's Center for Healthy Minds, comment on how police culture could change to be more beneficial in helping personnel deal with work-related stress.

Abstract

The speakers tend to agree that typical police culture has not been conducive to officers recognizing the effects of work-related stress and the importance of seeking help from those trained to treat and guide officers in dealing constructively with the stressful aspects of their work, their response to the stress, and the development of healthy coping behaviors and attitudes. The police culture has often encouraged officers to be strong enough to deal with work-related stress on their own, refusing to complain or acknowledge personal difficulty in coping with the stress of police work.