"We have not taken our cue from the really good research that there is stress in other organizations."

-Katherine Ellison

Katherine Ellison, who has studied the effects of stress on police officers since 1972, says the men and women in blue are ordinary people responding in ordinary ways to overwhelming pressure.

What causes stress in police officers, according to Ellison, often surprises people. Last year she went on sabbatical to conduct research at the FBI headquarters in Quantico, Va. for the second edition of her book, Stress and the Police Officer. The first edition was published in 1983.

The best part of the research expedition at the FBI, she joked, was that she had unlimited Xeroxing. "I got copier carpal tunnel," said Ellison, who was a visiting faculty fellow in the profiling unit. "The FBI has an excellent specialty library that is open 24 hours a day. Not only did it move my book ahead, I didn't have to shop, cook, clean, weed or mow for an entire month. It was wonderful."

Ellison, who relies on humor to combat her own stress, recently discussed the results of her research, which she presented to a Psychology Department Colloquium earlier this month.

Q. How did you get involved in your research?
A. At the end of my first semester as a graduate student I was working with the New York Police Department and I learned they were starting a rape squad. I wasn't interested in that but I was interested in organizational change in bureaucracies. I soon realized that the same things I was seeing in rape victims I was seeing in police officers, so I called a police friend and we began talking about police stress. I find it rewarding to work with police. It is a career that makes or breaks you. Some of the finest human beings I know are cops, and some of the least finest human beings I know are cops.

Q. How will the second edition of Stress and the Police Officer differ from the first?
A. There weren't as many resources when I first wrote the book, so it contains a number of practical exercises. The second book contains more resources and I focus on the nature of the enormous amount of research. Things police specialists do, such as debriefing, are often harmful. Recalling their worst experiences and how they reacted tends to increase, not decrease, incidents of post-traumatic stress disorder. But people often don't pay attention to research. It's required in New Jersey now to teach recruits a module on stress, but in general it's not done well.

Q. What is the major cause of stress in police officers?
A. We have not taken our cue from the really good research that there is stress in other organizations. We know a fair amount about occupational stress yet it just is not carrying over to police departments. The number one stressor among police officers is bad supervision. Cops will say, and this is backed up by a lot of research, "I can take anything on the street. It's not when I go out, it's when I come back in that's a problem for me." A police officer's job is not uniquely stressful. It's not even uniquely dangerous. It's more dangerous to be a clerk in an all-night convenience store or gas station and being a livery cab driver.

Q. What aspect of police training is particularly weak?
A. They tend not to train well for interviewing skills because class sizes are too large. If I have 100 students in my class I can't properly teach them how to interview. State and county police in New Jersey and throughout the country tend to be the paramilitary model, which is not appropriate for policing. They don't learn discretion and training tends to be someplace between poor and very poor. Police officers learn on the street. If they learn, that's fine, and if they don't, they're in trouble.

Q. What do you mean by discretion?
A. Fire service, as I see it, is very different from police work. Fire service has a bunch of people doing a technological task, all together, under immediate supervision. Police officers must make snap decisions on their own, so they need to have an enormous amount of discretion.

Q. Have you found any model training academies?
A. Minnesota has one of the best training programs in the nation. They require all officers to have an associate's degree, and they are required to take classes in psychology and criminal law. The academy training in Minnesota also involves a great deal of role playing. Most academies just lecture to their recruits. It's a miracle that as many officers turn out well as do.

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