Canadian police subculture’s impacts on the daily lives of police officers: a review

Police services have strong subcultures that permeate their social structures. Previous literature on Canadian police subcultures focuses on specific facets thereof, with researchers attempting to measure the existence and prevalence of the niche they are investigating. However, no known studies demonstrate how all these factors combined affect the overall experience of a career as a police officer, which is what inspires this paper’s research question: what are the career-long impacts of police subculture on police officers?. Combining the constructivist worldview with a qualitative approach, this research aims to consolidate the available literature into one comprehensive review. Data was collected from nineteen peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles, extrapolated and analyzed to answer the research question using secondary data analysis. This study found that Canadian police officers have a myriad of unwritten social rules and expectations stemming from the need to continually prove one’s masculinity both on and off the job. The requirement to conform to traditional norms and provide the police service with unconditional loyalty, even at the expense of one’s own family life, plays a significant negative role in the work-life balance of officers. Over time, these factors contribute to occupational stress injuries, which can lead to poor mental health outcomes, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The findings of this study fill an important gap in the literature by providing valuable insight into how poor factors in police subculture interconnect and compound each other. Future studies could examine how these outcomes affect visible and sexual minorities, which this study identified as lacking in contemporary research.