Stress and Fatigue in Police Personel and how it affects them Research Paper

Stress and Fatigue in Police Personel and how it affects them - Research Paper Example Research has also revealed that male and female police personnel perceive stress and fatigue differently (Zhao, et al; 2002).According to Keinan & Pines (2007), professional stress always directly impacts work performance of the employees; since police job is a sensitive and significant profession, there should be some strategy to reduce this work stress faced by police personnel. 1.2 Nature of Job Dealing with stress greatly depends upon one’s coping skills, however, Gaines & Jermier, 1983) have identified that job related fatigue is encouraged and elevated due to emotional exhaustion in high stress organizations (Zhao, et al; 2002). Police department in itself is a high stress department where police personnel get exposure to all dark and criminal sides of life. Gaines & Jermier (1983) further point out that the nature of police job and mandate of police in society is a bit contradictory and emotionally critical; which is why special attention is needed in this field to devi se and implement stress reduction strategies. 2. REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE A lot of academic and scholarly literature is available on the topic. Some of the relevant researches are reviewed under the three categories below: 2.1Causes of Stress and Fatigue among Police Personnel and its effects Abdollahi (2002) conducted a detailed review based study to investigate the stressors faced by police force personnel. The results of the study revealed four categories of stressors: Intra personal (Factors related to personality), Occupational, organizational and health related. According to Haines (2003), more police officers face stress due top relationships rather than job, because the tough nature of police job impacts their personal and family life. In another study, White and colleagues (1985) explored the factors that cause stress among police professional and found that these stressors can be broadly distributed into the three categories namely: physical or psychological threat, l ack of support and evaluation systems. Research has also focused on the job burnout in prison department. One study by Keinan & Pines (2007) has revealed that not only there are differences in perceived stress among personnel from various police departments like security, administration and treatment; differences are also found in stress level experience as per seniority position or rank wise. The main stressors identified include: working extra shifts without compensation, low salary packages and excessive work load. Boyce (2006) has explained stressors faced by police personnel in terms of external and internal factors. External factors of stress as per Boyce (2006) include: negative publicity, untimely court appearances, distorted police related press accounts, negative attitude and discouragement from friends and family on choice of profession. 2.2 Gender differences in Police Stress According to Boyce (2006), the female police personnel face an extra stress of proving themselve s since their ‘handling the situation’ skills are more often questioned as compared to those of males. Gachter and colleagues (2009) investigated gender differences in stress among police personnel. They measured stress on two scales, one for physical and other for psychological stress. Their findings were

How We Could Use Alternative Dispute Resolution To Settle Civil Essay

How We Could Use Alternative Dispute Resolution To Settle Civil Justice Matters More Efficiently - Essay Example The Arbitration Act 1966 and 19965 provided full court application of one of the ADR procedures, following the lead of UNCITRAL's 1958 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards paving the way to acceptance of arbitration in international trade dispute resolution. The methods were taken up by the public after they have been officially encouraged in Lord Woolf's 1996 "Access to Justice" report.6 The Police (Northern Ireland) Act 20007 is one of the more recent statutes applying ADR to administrative tribunal cases following PACE 1984, infra. The cost effectiveness of ADR has been fully demonstrated in commercial litigation. It has also placed or misplaced false hopes on the alternative methods application in civil cases. Civil case application of ADR encouraged the proliferation of profit and non-profit ADR providers and services with fully trained and accredited ADR practitioners, most of whom are also solicitors. The CPR required active management of cases by judges, including encouragement of litigating parties to use ADR. For the purpose of facilitating ADR use by litigants, CPR allows the court to stay its proceedings while the parties concerned try to settle the case. Pre-action protocols were also installed, requiring parties to let each other know the basis of their proposed claims and defences. The importance of ADR is emphasized in several judicial decisions. In Cowl vs. Plymouth9, the Court of Appeals imposed cost sanctions on a party for unreasonable failure to use ADR. Solicitors are also required to apprise clients of ADR, otherwise, they will be considered professionally negligent. Apart from judicial initiative, the executive also introduced ADR in government departments and administrative tribunals, particularly in clinical negligence claims, employment and legal services. Mr. Justice Lightman, a Justice of the High Court Chancery Division, presented ADR with high hopes as a necessary alternative to "extravagantly expensive and unpredictable exercise"10 of litigation. It must be recognized that ADR is "an ever evolving process."11 Newer methods are being introduced and legislation, including rules of court would tend to be left behind. Current consensus among law practioners tend to limit ADR use to arbitration and mediation. The failure of the use of inappropriate ADR method force the parties to incur needless expenses. On this note, the observations of Sir Anthony Evans triggers a painful spot when he pointed out that it is the agreement of the parties to come to a settlement that is responsible for the supposed success of ADR and not ADR processes themselves. In fact, he emphasized that "a settlement agreement is always to be preferred to any of the [ADR] processes which may result in a binding decision".12 He meant that solicitors and judges should look at the nature of the case before influencing the parties to undergo ADR procedures that could be inappropriate and ineffective. He also pointed out