Date
2-23-2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Human Services
Abstract
Stress and burnout are increasingly prevalent amongst law enforcement officers and civilian staff due to job demands and job-related traumas. A culture of wellness planning is how administrations can build resiliency against stress and burnout. A wellness plan should emphasize organizational responsibility, officer responsibility, formal and informal leadership, and external collaborations. Agencies can also utilize the same cognitive behavioral therapies that supervised release agents find beneficial for clients. There are great similarities between the utilization of cognitive behavioral interventions, evidence-based models, and thought behavioral links between supervised release clients and law enforcement staff members. Often, cognitive behavioral therapies are used to help supervised release clients change their thought processes to change their criminal behaviors. For law enforcement officers and staff members, these same techniques can be used for those struggling with mental health particularly relating to stress or burnout accumulated on the job. If left untreated stress and burnout have a negative impact on how officers and civilian staff carry out their duties. This leads to ethical and moral failures. Agencies can foster staff to have a personal moral compass through external mental health resources, developing clear and concise ethics policies, having leaders who model strong ethical values, and changing the culture within the agency to be mental-health focused first.
Searching methods for this literature review focused on law enforcement and civilian staff stress and trauma. An emphasis was placed on how law enforcement agencies could help staff build resiliency towards stress and burnout and what resources were beneficial.