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From 1964-1990, the rates with which police officers were assaulted, injured, and killed were predicted by social indicators of violence and social disintegration.
Written responses to a questionnaire by 255 officers who used canines in police work were assessed. Almost all officers frequently played with, talked to, petted, and brushed their dogs and believed the dogs benefitted their health and well-being. Officers whose dogs slept indoors, often in the same bedroom, generally said they loved their dogs and they described their dogs as calm rather than active, as indicated by a multiple correspondence analysis. These 96 officers more than the 154 officers whose dogs slept outdoors or in kennels also planned to remain in canine work. Although departments often assumed responsibility for purchasing the dogs, the more experienced officers usually were involved in the final selection of dogs (logistic regression: p < .0001). Compared with 94 officers not involved in selecting their dogs, 106 officers with a specific role in selecting their dogs planned to stay in canine work, as shown by a multiple correspondence analysis. They believed the dogs had saved their lives (p < .01). Over-all, officers reported spending 4.1 hr. on-duty and 2.9 hr. off-duty per week training their dogs, and also played with them for 6.5 hr. per week, assuring a regular pattern of exercise for the officers. Virtually all officers valued canine service and believed the dogs enhanced the department's effectiveness. This study showed that both close companionship with the dog and involvement in selecting the dog were associated both with satisfaction with the dog and with working as a canine officer.
A northeastern American municipal police department experienced a cluster of suicides in 1987-1993 but experienced none in the period 1994-1999.
426 students rated a vignette wherein an older person was patronized (more or less) or not by a police officer. Trait attributions were linearly related to extent of patronization: predictably negative for the patronizers, yet positive for the recipients. Visual appearances of patronizers and patronizees did not influence these patterns.
A pilot study of 33 male and 2 female municipal police officers, most between 30 and 40 years old, found that those whose colleagues more often engage in misconduct experience more excitement and more stress in their work.
This study examined the relationship of police tenure and career stage and cynicism among 766 Norwegian constables and managers. Constables with less tenure and in an early career stage, but not managers, scored lower on cynicism.
The author discusses the use of off-duty police officers to reduce violence in a hospital's emergency room. He provides the results from an assessment of the program.
This study was performed on 18 police officers, in order to evaluate relations between behavior and the activity of the main hormonal systems implicated in stress management. All subjects were male volunteers with more than 2 years on the job, a type A psychological profile according to Friedman and Rosenman, suffering from no mental or physical illness. The experimental setting used to study the role of different stress factors consisted of a series of tests that re-created stressful situations that the subject might encounter in his job. The study showed that during stressful states, not only did peripheral secretion of catecholamines increase, but that the ratio of epinephrine to norepinephrine was a determinant factor. Epinephrine secretion which was elevated at the beginning, decreased when the stressful situation was clarified or controlled, whereas norepinephrine secretion remained elevated as long as the subject had to remain alert. Cortisol secretion seemed to depend upon anticipation of the stressful event more than its actual happenning.
The authors discuss the formation of CLEPS--a partnership of police and private security, with representatives from six area hospitals--to improve communication and reduce criminal incidents in both the city and the hospitals. They provide details on why the organization was formed, its goals and objectives, its accomplishments, and future plans.
The new police car flashing-light device (930 Heliobe Lightbar) has recently been implicated as potentially epileptogenic. We exposed 30 epileptic patients, 30 nonepileptic patients who suffered from headache and 15 normal volunteers to this light source. All had routine EEGs with standard intermittent photic stimulation, followed by 3-minute stimulation with the Lightbar. In none were either seizures or EEG changes induced. In 1 epileptic spike-and-wave activity induced by standard photic stimulation was enhanced with the Lightbar. We could not confirm that the Lightbar is epileptogenic.
The author participated as a forensic odontologist in the Dutch Disaster Victim Identification (DVI-)team during the period 1977-1995. In this article he describes the organization and procedure of this police unit, which is especially trained for the recovery and identification of victims. He also gives an impression of the organization and the special manner of identification of the forensic odontologists within the group of external specialists of the DVI-team. He describes the technical aspects of the identification activities of the forensic odontologists, as well as the identification problems at different sorts of mass disasters. The quality of the records obtained from the victims' dentists greatly influences the final results of dental identification.
In February 2001, Massachusetts' highest court ruled that a man whose blood was splattered on police officers during his arrest is protected under that state's law from having to reveal his HIV status.
Dr. Wan Yanhai, widely considered one of China's leading AIDS activists, was detained by police in Beijing August 24. Amnesty International and AIDS organizations have called for immediate letters and email on his behalf.
OBJECTIVES: Sections of contemporary South African society are characterised by high levels of crime and interpersonal conflict. The South African Police Service (SAPS) is in the front line, with many deaths and injuries occuring among serving officers in recent years. The circumstances and nature of the injuries sustained by these officers have received little attention in the medical literature. DESIGN: A retrospective review of all injured SAPS members was undertaken at a single level one trauma centre in Johannesburg between June 1993 and June 2002. The following factors were recorded: demographics, mechanism and anatomical site of injury, mode of transportation to hospital, whether personal protection had been used, mortality, and return to work. RESULTS: One hundred and thirty-four SAPS personnel were admitted over a 9-year period. The majority (95%) were male and the median age was 31 years. One hundred and thirty-two were on duty and two were in transit to a place of duty when injured. Ninety-two (69%) were injured by gunshot, (including 3 attempted suicides and 9 injuries due to negligent discharge), 2 members were stabbed, 31 were involved in motor vehicle accidents, 2 in motorbike accidents, 1 member was struck by a car while directing traffic, 3 officers were injured by falls from a height, 2 members were injured in helicopter crashes, and 1 member required treatment for gas inhalation. Documentation on whether some form of personal protection was worn at the time of injury was only available for 43 of the 92 cases of gunshot wounds (47%); of these, only 15 (35%) were wearing a bulletproof vest. Use or non-use of a seat belt was documented by hospital staff for only 6 of the 31 officers (19%) injured in motor vehicle accidents. None of the 6 officers had been restrained by a seatbelt. Nineteen SAPS personnel (14%) died of their injuries, but the majority of surviving members returned to duty. CONCLUSION: There is an unacceptably high level of violence in South African society today and SAPS members regularly have to deal with dangerous or violent situations. There is a clear need to introduce a reporting system within the SAPS to record the use of personal protection by officers. Education needs to target SAPS members in order to enhance their use of personal protection. There is a further need to design and implement personal protection that will be universally acceptable by SAPS members.
On 2 September 2003, the England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) denied the appeal against sentence by a woman living with hepatitis C who stabbed a police officer repeatedly with a used syringe while resisting arrest. The court confirmed the nine-year sentence.
Given frequent assignments of responding to critical situations, police officers are a high-risk population for exposure to traumatic stress. It was hypothesized that types and increased frequencies of certain traumas lead to increased risk for PTSD symptoms and eventually to a state of compassion fatigue through secondary processes. Compassion fatigue was conceptualized as the cost of caring without reward or result. Results indicated that the homicide of another officer in the line of duty and dealing with victims of serious crime resulted in the greatest increased risk of trauma symptoms. Gender differences were found in trauma risk, with women officers experiencing higher risk from dealing with abused children. and male officers experiencing higher risk due to shooting incidents where officers were involved. It was concluded that increased frequency and type of traumas, especially those occurring to other co-workers and those associated with gender, may eventually lead to a secondary process of emotional compassion fatigue. Available strategies for prevention are discussed
A police crackdown in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES) displaced the drug scene to adjacent areas and may have exacerbated the health and social harms associated with injection drug use. This is the finding of a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal by Evan Wood and his colleagues at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.
Shift work is an important source of health disturbances. Night work has a negative influence on some spheres: biological, working, social, and medical. Disturbances of sleeping, one group of manifestations of medical problems, can be considered as a cause of health deterioration. This study focuses on the occurrence of breathing disturbances during sleep in shift workers. Twenty one shift worked police officers (40-60 years old) were compared with an age-matched control group operating in the some environment. All subjects underwent overnight polysomnography. The polysomnographic investigation by shift workers was conducted after a day shift and normal night sleep, after an adaptational night in the sleep laboratory. Obstructive sleep apnea was found in 8 shift workers (38%) with AHI of 5.72-45.45 and in 8 control volunteers (38% of the studied group) with AHI of 5.00-25.24. All breathing parameters, as measured by polysomnography, did not differ between the two groups. Our results do not confirm the hypothesis that chronic irregular work hours promote the occurrence of obstructive sleep apnea in subjects aged 40-60 years.