Spirituality and the Traumatic Stress in Law Enforcement

Traumatic Stress in Law Enforcement
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Abstract
Policing is a demanding occupation, and it constantly deals with injuries, horrifying crime scenes, demise, and being alert regularly, irrespective of being on or off work. The adverse influence of traumatic and other job-linked stressors on the officers’ health and wellbeing is immense. This is because exposure to these traumatic encounters leads to depression, PTSD, suicide, and drug misuse. Therefore, cops need a coping approach to overcome these traumatic stressors. Studies regularly cite spirituality as an effective method of safeguarding cops from the policing ill consequences, which reportedly results in enhanced health and wellness. The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of spirituality as a coping approach for officers confronting traumatic stress.
Traumatic Stress in Law Enforcement
A person may get post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after experiencing traumatic circumstances. People exposed in this way may exhibit symptoms like unpleasant memories of the incident, intolerance of any recollections, and emotional and physiological issues. Police officers are in danger of acquiring PTSD as they are recurrently subjected to horrible situations, such as seeing carcasses or neglected kids, ferocious assaults, and participating in shootings (Foley & Massey, 2019). Cops might encounter mental health issues due to this exposure, which might limit their job performance. Therefore, law enforcers must have a coping mechanism to handle the trauma they encounter in their line of duty. The paper also argues that spirituality is one of the vital coping mechanisms to help law enforcement officers’ deal with traumatic stress.
Impacts of Traumatic Stress on Law Enforcement
Historically, the duties of cops have included a wide range of tasks. They defend and serve society, occasionally calling for them to act as social workers, therapists, and unbiased peacekeepers. However, there is an emotional cost associated with these jobs. They are first-hand observers of gruesome atrocities such as severe natural catastrophes, terrorist acts that cause numerous victims, suicides, car accidents that cause trauma and death, child neglect or abuse, and domestic violence. These cumulatively painful experiences may affect the person and lead to PTSD. This result is in line with what Daniel and Treece (2021) found: that law enforcement personnel experience enormous stressors as part of their everyday responsibilities, all of which impact their mental health, whether or not that impact is immediate. Additionally, Daniel and Treece’s (2021) findings may be related to Tuttle et al. (2018)'s claim that police officers may be hesitant to take out mental health experts because of fear of stigma or rejection from their peers.
Foley and Massey (2019) assert that it took several decades for the mental health profession to publicly accept that soldiers deployed to combat zones were mentally devastated by what they had seen and experienced. Sadly, when they returned from service, Vietnam soldiers with PTSD symptoms did not receive adequate mental health care. The first time PTSD was recognized as a diagnosis in the DSM-III was not until 1980. Similar to this, officers in the quasi-military universe of policing are all too increasingly subjected to traumatic incidents. However, in order to protect their careers, they find it difficult to show emotion or acknowledge feeling stressed out for fear of being branded as "not hard enough for the job," "vulnerable," or even "inept for duty (Uwland-Sikkema et al., 2018)." Police officers who may experience PTSD might similarly encounter behavorial challenges such as suicidal ideation, drug abuse, and ferocity.
It is reasonably common knowledge that God had given a series of rules and instructions on applying them. The Mosaic Law laid out the definition of sin and the consequences for transgressors. Without enforcement, a law is essentially nothing. Even though there may not have been a police service as we know it in biblical times, individuals undoubtedly advocated justice by upholding the law. Christian police supporters contend that communities deserve police forces in the face of crime to save the defenseless and ward off anarchy and evil. Throughout the 20th century, this has been a particularly popular evangelical theme (Lambert et al., 2017). Undoubtedly, some evangelicals supported the use of force by police. Christians are among the most outspoken supporters of community police initiatives that created relationships with social services and prioritized sensitivity and neighborhood involvement over a solely punitive approach. As examples of law enforcement, the Bible in Ezekiel 33:6 makes mention of watchmen, Nehemiah 4:13 about armed guards, and Ezekiel 44:24 about judges. According to Deuteronomy 32:4, God is a righteous God who commands His people to follow fairness and righteousness alone in Deuteronomy 16:20. This command implies the law enforcement requirement. God has often given man the duty of abiding by and upholding justice.
Cops’ pressures have been portrayed in the literature as impacting their work execution, health, and interpersonal connections. Additionally, compared to those in comparable professions, police officers had a higher suicide rate. According to Tuttle et al. (2018), there were seventeen homicides per 100,000 police officers compared to only eleven per 100,000 people in the general community, outpacing the rate of suicide among civilians. Because of the overload of cases and the limited resources available, smaller police agencies have greater suicide rates than larger ones. Officers' ability to manage work-related stress may therefore have a big impact on how long they stay in the field (Foley & Massey, 2019). Police personnel who want to learn good coping mechanisms for handling difficult situations can benefit from spirituality. The issue is that, in the police culture, it is common to ignore how establishing a powerful spiritual base can help relieve stress.
Evangelicals view cops as a divinely established role that guards the social order against chaos and evil. Evangelical ministers and Christian cops give divinities of law enforcement activity that justify aggression and radiate a vision of God's role for earthly authority by mobilizing biblical scriptures like Romans 13. Being in police enforcement is a very difficult job. Stress can come from a variety of causes for officers. In order to cope with the emotional and spiritual sides of their lives, police officers require Christian pastors (Saini, 2017). Many police personnel dismiss spirituality. Officers' erratic and even bizarre work patterns may contribute to the lack of discussion on the religious side of life. Attending religious services or sustaining ties at a chapel can be challenging for many officers who work at night, on weekends, and are on call.
Police work makes several cops feel stressed. Patrol cops encounter the danger of violence daily, which makes people regard policing jobs as inherently stressful work. Likewise, particular roles in police departments, like child maltreatment investigations, might trigger anguish in cops. Nevertheless, the mental duty of these positions is mostly disregarded, and the basis of this agony is explored anecdotally instead of empirically (Saini, 2017). Cops’ administrators should investigate how traumatic incidents can transform their workforce worldviews and spirituality, which eventually impacts their wellbeing. Thus, a positive spirit can assist cops in lessening job-linked stress by permitting them to diminish the influence of traumatic encounters. Hence cops managers and training directors should recognize the vital function in transforming the conduct and disposition linked to workplace trauma by devising wellness and spirituality initiatives for their agencies.
Police agencies should continue to worry about how their profession affects the officers' inner selves and emotions and should encourage a culture that accepts spirituality as a survival technique. A Strong sense of purpose, colleague trust and respect, humanistic labor practices, and tolerance of employee voice in the workplace are the four cultural traits of a spiritual organization. Therefore, a corporate culture that embraces spirituality can better support the workforce's developmen...