POLICE jUSTICE
... Torrance Police Officer Tom Edwards has just gotten of his last twelve hour shift for the week. ... Tom has worked several jobs in his life, but none of them have had the steady pay and benefits that the police force has given him. Everything in Tom’s life seemed good on the outside, but like many police officers, Tom was suffering from the emotional strains that come with everyday police work. The Friday night shift that Tom worked was the third time in the past two weeks in which the North East division of the Torrance Police Department had experienced twenty or more emergency calls in one shift. ... He tries some of his breathing exercises that he learned in a yoga class offered by the police force. ... The signs and symptoms that Tom Edwards, along with many other law enforcement is what we like to call police burnout. ... Police Burnout can be defined as the stress of being a member of a unique subculture within a society composed of people who deal not only with the ambivalence of the average citizen to those who wield the power and authority of the badge (Brown, goecities. ... Burnout in this case applies to all of those who are working in public safety whether they are correction officers, firefighters, dispatchers, EMS personnel, police families, and of course police wives and husbands. However, for the purpose of this conversation, I will be referring mostly to the stress and burnout that applies to police officers. ... People in America are led to believe that police officers are these indestructible superhumans who do battle with crime and corruption on a daily basis (Fishkin, Police Burnout, 11). ... What many people fail to conceptualize about police officers is that most of them are normal, everyday people just like you and me. ... Hal Brown of Mason Health Center, a police officer in America commits suicide every 24 hours. Despite this alarming statistic, even one police suicide is one too many. ... Many times police officers keep their feelings and experiences to themselves out of fear of being looked down on for being labeled “emotionally weak”. Police in America pride themselves in being brave and strong on both a mental and physical level. ... Just in the past twenty years have police psychologists become available for officers, yet many still refuse to get help. ... Many marriages among police officers are in jeopardy because of the lack of communication between the two partners. ... This is a major contributor to police depression and many officers develop what is called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD). ... This has a great affect on police-community relations. ... It is estimated that a full 33% of police officers on active duty suffer from PTSD. ... At the most basic level, stress is psychological and is the direct result of the ways in which we have learned to cope (Fishkin, Police Burnout, 18). ... This is when stress takes its toll on police officers, as well as many others in society. ... This is what we call “police burnout”. One of the most prevalent symptoms that police officers demonstrate is that of anxiety. When a police officer suffers from anxiety, he or she displays a variety of different symptoms including irritability, impulsiveness, hostility, frustration, perspiration, alcohol and other drug use, mental confusion, panic attacks, as well as many others. Anxiety among police officers comes in many forms. ... Simply the fact that policing is “hours of boredom sparked by moments of stark terror” creates a situation where police can develop high levels of stress and anxiety.