Rekindling Police Burnout: Implications for the Motivation
نویسندگان
چکیده
A qualitative research design was utilized to address the issue of police burnout as described in the pertinent literature. The goals of the study were to determine the causes of burnout among a sample of recently retired or separated police officers and what could be done to alleviate those feelings. Data gleaned from respondents produced three common themes: benefits of higher education (graduate degrees); physical separation from the policing environment coupled with critical reflection of their careers; and the art or practice of teaching traditional age students courses in criminal justice in a higher education setting. Respondents reported all of these factors combined to alleviate their former feelings of burnout and to significantly transform their previous perspectives of the field of policing. The conclusions section of the report offer sound recommendations for an improved response to the individual and organizational consequences of police burnout. Rekindling Police Burnout 3 Advances in technology, increasing budgetary constraints, changing police roles, and generational differences regarding attitudes and beliefs within the law enforcement community all combine to create problems with the recruitment and retention of qualified personnel more than ever before. Regarding retention issues specifically, burnout plays a critical role. In its most basic sense, burnout is described as "...a chronic state of emotional exhaustion stemming from an unrelenting series of on-the-job pressures with few moments of positive experience" (Champoux, 2000, p. 308). However, much of the literature surrounding the issue of stress and subsequent burnout center around what many authors identify as critical incident stress, or severe emotional trauma brought on by involvement with deadly force and/or other violent encounters (McCamey et al, 2003). Similarly, corresponding employee assistance programs, if they exist at all, tend to focus on violence-induced forms of stress or symptoms of stress such as alcoholism, drug abuse, and cynicism (Thibault et al, 2001). Practical experience, however, coupled with data collected for this research project, suggest that a substantial number of stressors related to burnout are caused by a variety of internal or organizational factors, (such as rigid bureaucratic or mechanistic structures and commensurate polices and procedures) as well as feelings of marginalization due to a lack of any real input into the decision making process or any real or perceived sense of autonomy. Supporting the notion that a variety of stressors contribute to police officer burnout, Zhao, Thurman, and He (1999) conducted an exhaustive study that found job satisfaction among police officers to be multidimensional. These dimensions included perceptions about the importance of their work; recognition, or lack thereof, received from their respective agencies; autonomy; and the capability to do their work. Autonomy, however, emerged as a significant variable in all related regression analyses (Zhao et al., 1999). "...this finding suggests that police officers like to work in an environment where they enjoy considerable freedom to decide what they will do. [The] traditional model of policing emphasizes control to enhance employees' conformity and predictability ... this is achieved, however, by sacrificing field officers' freedom to solve problems" (Zhao et al., 1999, p. 12). It is these variables-employer control, forced conformity, and lack of autonomy--that, in part, drive the research at hand. No matter what the particular cause, the fact remains that when burnout occurs, a significant number of police officers who may once have been productive members of their organizations, frequently become marginal employees, or worse. The consequences of this condition, at the very least, can be damaging to the organization, not only in terms of work productivity, but perhaps more important, in terms of positive community relations. The question which begs an answer then is what actions or steps can be implemented to take police officers who were once productive and enthusiastic but have fallen victim to burnout for the reasons cited above, and re-instill or rekindle the flame which once motivated them. Herein lay the goals of this research project. Review of the Literature There is a large body of extant literature that addresses the related issues of stress and burnout as they pertain to law enforcement practitioners, as well as personnel that work in similar human service professions. Accordingly, there is an imperative to provide a pragmatic framework for understanding the various components of behavior that exacerbate the concept of burnout. In a study of 250 New Zealand nurses for example, Kalliath and Beck (2001) noted the affect of low levels of supervisory support in relation to job burnout and turnover. Nurses, like police officers, "are frequently exposed to intense and emotionally draining life and death situations, which over time can take a toll on them personally" (p.72). Similarly, Zhao, Thurman, and He (1999) found that the affect of the police agency's work environment is a principal source of job satisfaction. Their detailed study revealed that the majority Rekindling Police Burnout 4 of research into the concept of job satisfaction among police officers has previously focused on four key independent variables that have revealed inconsistent and contradictory results, namely: an officer's educational background; ethnicity; gender; and years of service and/or police officer's rank. The results of their research indicated that the work environment is a crucial feature of job satisfaction in police work along with the significance of individual autonomy, wherein police officers have the freedom to choose how they will carry out their specific function. Carter (2002) focuses on the concept of self-image and the relationship of that image to the work environment as it pertains to issues such as morale. He correctly points out that "What is called good morale is a state of well-being that stems from a sense of purpose and confidence in the future. It depends on role conception, role performance, and role satisfaction" (pp. 177-178). Carter has emphasized that the move toward community policing may serve to enhance job satisfaction giving the police officer a "greater sense of purpose in their profession, and the feeling of accomplishment when they help resolve community problems" (p. 182). Related to Carter's study is the seminal research of Herzberg (1968), who indicated that job satisfaction is closely associated with how important the employee perceives the work to be, the level of responsibility that is attached to the work, and the recognition received by the employee for doing the work. Other research studies have highlighted the lack of supervisor and organizational support, while indicating that long-term police stress will result in burnout, reduced motivation, and poor performance (Anshel, 2000). Research by Elroy, Terpining, and Kohls (2001) revealed that the major factors contributing to burnout included role conflict, role ambiguity, adequacy of time to accomplish tasks, and low worker support. A review of the literature as it relates to strategies for the retention and motivation of personnel addresses the issue of continuing education in its relationship to the law enforcement professional specifically, and the field of criminal justice in general. Continuing professional education as it relates to the law enforcement profession has not witnessed a great deal of research, both from the pre-service and in-service perspective. The value and need for continuing professional education within the law enforcement community, however, is undisputed. New procedures, changing trends of crime, information technology, the ever-expanding base of knowledge regarding criminal behavior, and huge liability concerns (to mention a few) add to the level of perceived stress and are a major contributory factor in regards to the concept of "burnout." Effective solutions require continuing education programs that are informative, relevant, and address a specific need or concern. Creating programs that enable that needed change involves a careful assessment of how a program should be structured and carried out. The objective of this category is to shift the emphasis on the way continuing law enforcement professional education has been conducted. Moreover, it is an attempt to arrive at a system of continuing education that has substance and quality, and causes a positive change in behavior and attitude, both in the pre and in-service practitioner. The purpose is to attempt to correct perceived inadequacies in the current state of continuing law enforcement education while improving the quality of service delivered as the result of that correction. It is our belief that law enforcement professionals seek continuing educational programs of substance and worth and that current methods of instruction have proven both inadequate and of little practical use. It is also our belief that as criminal justice practitioners become involved in the direction and delivery of their education and training, they become stakeholders in the value that the profession has to them as individuals. Houle’s (1975) classic work identified eight "aims" of continuing professional education. According to Houle (1975, pp. 438-439) continuing profession education should strive to: 1. keep up with the new knowledge required to perform responsibly in the chosen career; Rekindling Police Burnout 5 2. master new conceptions of the career itself; 3. keep up with changes in the relevant basic disciplines; 4. prepare (sometimes after the fact) for changes in a personal career line; 5.. maintain freshness of outlook in the work done, so that detail is not neglected; 6. continue to grow as a well-rounded person; 7. retain the power to learn; and 8. discharge effectively the social role imposed by membership in a profession. The eighth "aim" illustrates the compelling dichotomy that exists between the desired outcome of continuing professional education and the current state of continuing professional law enforcement education. Houle (1975) explained this point in greater detail, stating that "the professional must learn how to take collective responsibility, to make right choices on issues, to improve and extend the delivery of service, to collaborate with allied professions, and to help police the actions of fellow professionals" (p. 439). Miller’s (1967) seminal work in this area proposed an educational model-the process model, which is built upon the way in which adults learn. This led to his conclusion that essentially education was useless unless the participants were given a stake in wanting the information: "It means involving the participants in identifying their own educational needs" (p. 322). From the law enforcement education perspective, practitioners seek ongoing professional education that is both useful and pragmatic. As such, when police officers become stakeholders in the content, quality and delivery of the instruction they receive, the conversion to effective practice is both a natural and valuable outcome. Similarly, Cervero (1988) believed that continuing professional education required a foundation of knowledge attached to the various components of effective functioning: "To build the strongest conceptual base for practice, it is important to blend what we know about professional education and learning, human resource development, the structure and content of pre-service preparation, and the context of professional practice" (p. 17). Schon (1983) broke down the knowledge base of each profession into four required elements: "It is specialized, firmly bounded, scientific, and standardized" (p. 23). He further delineated two separate forms of knowledge that were at the basis of what he called professional artistry: "knowing-in-action" and "reflection-in-action" (p. 54). While Schon describes "knowing-in-action," as the "characteristic mode of ordinary practical knowledge" (p. 54), Brookfield (1987) describes "reflection-in-action," as "...theories in use, acknowledging the contextual complexity of work settings, and problem setting ...all important elements in the process of critical thinking at the workplace" (p. 155). Brookfield further elaborated on this distinction: "critical reflection is much more than a purely cognitive process of analysis and speculation. Instead, critical reflection in action is an artistic process. It is intuitive, improvisational, and creative" (p. 155). In summary, and according to Cervero and Wilson (1994), "Simply put, ... education cannot be a neutral activity; if it were, why would anyone care about it? Therein lies educators' central responsibility--namely, what kind of world will their practice shape?" (p. 5). We take the position that there is a need to link in-service training and education to the purposes of policing and to actively involve the law enforcement practitioner in the delivery of that training. Currently, it is not linked, nor is it related to the performance of police officers or the growth of police officers individually or law enforcement in general. Law enforcement vocational training and continuing professional education programs in criminal justice must develop new standards that are relevant to the field and address the concerns of both the practitioner and society in Rekindling Police Burnout 6 general. Current models of training have proven to be inadequate and do not take full advantage of the limited resources of time and money. At a period when public agencies are under increased scrutiny with regard to an accountability of those resources used, it becomes progressively more important to use those funds in the most effective manner possible. As such, a new model of learning needs to be developed within the police-training curriculum that brings about a change in the structure, intent, focus, and outcome of that delivery system. Along with this intended change is a reorientation of the existing mindset, or philosophy, of how police training has been performed in the past, with the view of approaching this new model in a way that adequately confronts those concerns and nurtures a value to the police officer that becomes internalized. In short, police training needs to step "out-of-the-box" and explore new methods that infuse relevance and meaning into preexisting training paradigms that have proven to be ineffective. In an article by Guthrie (2000), the issue of higher learning and police training as it is related to cognitive and communication skills and less on the use of force, indicated that "higher-order thinking" began at the college level and was then "supplemented by quality law enforcement entry-level academy and in-service training" (p. 124). The needed change in the existing training philosophy was discussed: Typically, academy training is rigid, authoritarian and does not lend itself to higher order thinking. It is conducted in a paramilitary setting, with discipline the mainstay of daily activities. Inservice training is somewhat less rigid with more interaction and problem solving. Law enforcement needs to incorporate more use of cognitive skills and problem solving in entry-level training. Service is the operative word and the guiding principle to be employed.... The problem with law enforcement is that the need for reform in the training process and educational standards is grounded, for the most part, in anecdotal information with little current empirical evidence (p. 125). Brown (2001) viewed the concept of learning from a phenomenological perspective, articulating that the importance of that which was learned related to how the person, in this case the criminal justice student, viewed the experience of learning. "The relevance of acquiring an education is often predicated upon what is valued in the acquisition of knowledge"(p. 101). It can be argued here that the information that was valued, within the context of training, was knowledge that was useful to the recruit or in-service trainee, directly relating to practice and demonstrated by competency in that skill or knowledge. Of particular note is the relatively recent nationwide move toward community policing which requires not only a redefinition of both recruit and in-service training, but also a revision of existing training curricula to adjust to this operational paradigm. Addressing this need, Birzer (1999) indicated that: "What new officers learn from the police academy curriculum serves as the foundation and building blocks for effective change in policing"(p. 16). Restating the point that modern police training requires information that is both practical and relevant, a departure from the traditional police-training model is advocated. This new model of policing addresses the community policing principle of problem solving and attempts to understand the root causes of crime. "Training should refocus on more pertinent and relevant issues (eg., conflict resolution, quality-of-life issues) than the traditional curriculum, which has largely centered on the mechanical and technical aspects of policing" (p. 17). Crime and crime prevention activities occupy approximately 15% of the average police officer's daily routine. The vast majority of his or her work involves calls of a service-related nature. Yet, and as correctly pointed out by Birzer (1999), "The paradox in the current state of police training is that the majority of training curricula are designed almost exclusively to teach officers what they will be doing a small percentage of their on-duty time" (p. Rekindling Police Burnout 7 17). It is further recommended in this article that due to the increased interaction with citizens, police officers operating under the community-policing model be trained in subjects as diverse as interpersonal interaction, ethnic and cultural diversity, drug and alcohol awareness, de-escalation skills, domestic violence, and communication skills. Birzer (1999) recommended that police academies place less emphasis on the traditional lecture format "which emphasizes mastery and obedience, puts undue stress on students, and does not encourage effective learning or support the community-policing mission" (p. 17). Birzer further indicated in his article that police departments "should shift training from mastery and obedience to a focus on empowering... that may foster a more effective learning experience" (p. 18). This article, which served as a framework for the changing viewpoints of how police recruit-and in-service training should be restructured, noted the important andragogical principle of student self-direction. "Training conducted in the police academy should highlight self-directed learning, which goes hand-in-hand with community policing.... for community policing to succeed, police officers must be self-directed" (p. 18). It is correctly pointed out that the mechanistic and highly behavioral nature of police work needs to change, as well as the current command-and-control structure that allows that thought and behavior process to thrive. It is the rigid adherence to this control structure that effectively prevents highly motivated and intelligent police officers from exercising any modicum of self-direction. This lack of self-direction contributes to a feeling of powerlessness, thereby exacerbating police burnout. Truly, many police officers believe that any human mistake, made while exercising even the smallest amount of self-direction, results in some form of punishment. It should not surprise most law enforcement practitioners that the concept of self-direction, whether it's personal input into self-directed learning or self-directed practice, is not an activity encouraged by most policing agencies. Police departments, in general, choose to direct their officers learning as well as their practice. Wade and Hammick (1999) discussed an approach to vocational training primarily directed to students in the health care industry. In their description of action learning, they gave an overview of the process involved that offered students the opportunity to become action enquirers: It is usual for an issue or problem from practice to be presented by a student, and the intention of the activity is one of "getting things done," i.e. it is a problem-solving exercise. Having raised a concern, the presenting student looks to their colleagues to help them explore and reflect upon the situation or problem, by questioning or drawing upon their own experience.... An action plan which eventually helps them reach a satisfactory outcome follows. (p. 164) In describing the objective, "Action learning-circles allow students to focus their learning upon their own practice and encourage their colleagues to act as critical co-investigators promoting dialogue and collaborative enquiry" (Wade & Hammick, 1999, p. 164). In conclusion, this section seeks to summarize and highlight some of the more important design considerations when planning a curriculum for police recruit training and continuing professional law-enforcement education. The references to aspects of police training that have been recommended, and that also embody many of the principles firmly rooted in higher education, do not diminish the fact that the primary objective of vocational training is to teach the vocational skills necessary to perform that job function. These references and recommendations do, however, fall outside the traditional structure of firmly established police training paradigms and seek to involve practitioners on a level not previously utilized. It is difficult to overstate the importance and complexity of policing a large and complex society. As such, training courses designed to teach that Rekindling Police Burnout 8 job function need to remain intact. Rather, the intention here is to incorporate those stated and recommended principles of professional education within the existing police training structure, while incorporating new ideas intended to stimulate a renewed interest in the profession. It is our belief that a focus and a re-dedication to recognizing those special qualities that the adult learner brings to the training environment will serve to strengthen and add new relevance and importance to what may be the most critical element of law enforcement, that of training and education. In the words of the "father of adult education," Eduard C. Lindeman (1961): Adult education is an attempt to discover a new method and create a new incentive for learning; its implications are qualitative, not quantitative....adult learners are precisely those whose intellectual aspirations are least likely to be aroused by the rigid, uncompromising requirements of authoritative, conventionalized institutions of learning. (p. 19)
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