RELEVANT
FOCUSED
READY

Stress & Coping Strategies for Canadian Police Officers
Cameron Olive

Introduction

Discussion

Police officers are often reported to experience high levels of
occupational stress, and consequently face numerous effects on their
work and home lives. This study examines the reasons behind stress
for Canadian police officers, and suggests possible stress reduction
techniques to reduce the impact of stress on long-term emotional
health. Research was also conducted to identify the feasibility of
implementing such techniques in a police subculture. Using a
qualitative analysis model, a variety of articles were reviewed in order
to determine the prevalence of the issue, and formulate workable
solutions.

Finding techniques that can not only be implemented, but also widely
accepted, was a central challenge encountered in the research. The
police subculture can be resistant to change (Gilmartin, 2002), and the
likelihood of practical stress coping mechanisms being accepted must
be considered when discussing the findings of the research. Police
departments should acknowledge that coping skills and stress
reduction strategies may be ineffective if implemented with a
universal approach. The needs of the officers in each department
differs depending on the characteristics of both the department and
the officer, and stress reduction strategies should be tailored
accordingly (Rineer, 2018). In order to achieve maximum efficacy, it is
suggested that police organizations integrate selected techniques into
pre-existing departmental training on stress coping. The suggested
stress coping mechanisms do not need to replace current
interventions for stressful/traumatic situations. Lastly, greater
organizational awareness and support was a recurring theme in the
research. Without the support of the department, the ability of the
officer to reduce the effects of stress may be compromised.

Background
Police officers are responsible for the safeguarding of the general
public, and accordingly, the prevention of negative effects resulting
from stress should be of societal concern. While there has been
significant research conducted on the causes of stress and factors
playing into increased stress levels, there is a dearth of research that
discusses practical techniques for officers to use in the field and at
home. This study examined various techniques that have been
suggested as methods of combatting occupational stress in policing.
Although there are many experimental techniques, there are few that
have had been widely accepted and implemented across Canadian
police departments.

Methods
In order to gather relevant literature for this study, I conducted a
comprehensive search and review of the Justice Institute of British
Columbia’s online library database (EBSCOhost). The initial search
utilized the keywords ‘police’ and ‘stress’, and was constrained to
academic journals published within the past 20 years. Emotional
health for law enforcement is a relatively new and evolving field of
study (Gilmartin, 2002); accordingly, the date range was constricted to
the past two decades. These search parameters returned 2,336
articles for review, and through this search I found many articles were
simply not relevant to the research. Material from international
sources comprised a significant amount of the articles, generating
many non-English results. In order to reduce the amount of irrelevant
material, I included further search terms of ‘officer’, ‘stress’, ‘coping’,
and ‘health’. I maintained the date range parameters, ensured all
articles were from academic journals, and excluded non-North
American articles. The inclusion of further search terms and
additional parameters improved the relevance and reasonability of
the search, reducing the search results to 358 articles. These articles
were then considered for specific applicability to my research.

Results/Findings
There are a wide variety of techniques suggested for increasing overall
coping skills, but there has been less research conducted on possible
on-the-job techniques to reduce stress. Conn & Butterfield (2013)
suggest some forms of task-orientation and relaxation techniques
when officers are required to stay on-scene at a distressing call. It is
suggested that individuals who become distressed become selfpreoccupied, increasing their levels of anxiety (Conn & Butterfield,
2013). Adaptive cognitive responses, such as breathing exercises and
being given specific tasks to complete (either physically or mentally),
may serve to reduce anxiety and stress levels. Tsai, Nolasco, & Vaughn
(2017) suggest that police officers can reduce job stress through
writing and expressing emotion. Rather than 'staying quiet' on their
feelings and internalizing emotions, it is suggested that officers
discuss stressful/traumatic experiences with a trusted person or a
trained professional (possibly through a debriefing) and/or document
events in a journal (Tsai et al., 2017).

Conclusion
Police officers are regularly exposed to highly stressful situations, and
accordingly face increased risk of harm to their long-term emotional
health. Task-orientation exercises, breathing exercises, keeping a
journal, and discussing stressful experiences with others were all
found to be potential coping skills. A fundamental necessity of policebased coping strategies is the ability to utilize them on the job, and all
of the discussed skills were found to be workable in the context of
policing. An examination of enacting culture change in police
departments would be invaluable when further discussing the
implementation of stress coping mechanisms as standard
departmental practice.

References
Conn, S. M., & Butterfield, L. D. (2013). Coping with secondary
traumatic stress by general duty police officers: practical
implications. Canadian Journal of Counselling and
Psychotherapy, 47(2), 272–298. Retrieved from
http://libproxy.jibc.ca:2048/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.co
m/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1016315&site=edslive&scope=site
Gilmartin, K. M. (2002). Emotional survival for law enforcement: A
guide for officers and their families. Tucson, AZ: E-S Press.
Rineer, J. (2018) Stress reduction programs for police officers: What
needs to change. Retrieved from RTI International website:
https://www.rti.org/insights/stress-reduction-programs-policeofficers-what-needs-change
Tsai, L. C.-F., Nolasco, C. A. R. I., & Vaughn, M. S. (2018). Modeling job
stress among police officers: interplay of work environment,
counseling support, and family discussion with co-workers. Police
Practice & Research, 19(3), 253–269. https://doiorg.libproxy.jibc.ca/10.1080/15614263.2017.1342091

Figure 1. Chart indicating emotional involvement levels for police officers. From
“Stress” by K. Foreman, 2011, https://www.klemagazine.com/home/2016/11/
14/stress-is-inevitable-suffering-is-not

Bachelor of Law Enforcement Studies

Justice Institute of British Columbia

March 2019